The FBI says Michigan synagogue shooter Ayman Mohammad Ghazali was inspired by Iran-backed Hezbollah.
The FBI said Monday that a man who drove his pickup truck into a Detroit-area synagogue earlier this month was inspired by the Iran-backed terrorist group Hezbollah, the FBI said Monday.Ayman Mohammad Ghazali, 41, of Dearborn Heights, made a video before the attack on Temple Israel, saying he “wanted to kill as many of them as possible,” said Jennifer Runyan, head of the FBI in Detroit.“Our assessment is that this attack is a Hezbollah-inspired terrorist act that intentionally targeted the Jewish community and the largest Jewish temple in Michigan,” he said. “The evidence shows that the attacker was motivated and inspired by the extremist ideology of Hezbollah.”Ghazali was a naturalized American citizen, originally from Mashghara in the Bekaa Valley of Lebanon. Israeli military officials confirmed that his two adult brothers, as well as his niece and nephew, were killed in Israeli air strikes in Lebanon, and his family connections include a brother, Ibrahim Ghazali, who was a Hezbollah commander.
attack on temple israel
On March 12, Ghazali sat in the synagogue parking lot for several hours and then drove his Ford F-150 through the closed doors into a hallway containing an early childhood education area, injuring a security guard. A vehicle reportedly filled with commercial-grade fireworks and jugs of gasoline caught fire during a shootout with security personnel. Ghazali ultimately shot himself during the confrontation.First responders immediately evacuated the building, and none of the approximately 150 children and staff members present were injured. Authorities later searched Ghazali’s residence and investigated his digital activity, noting that he had shared photos of children killed in Israeli air strikes before the attack.Temple Israel, part of Reform Judaism, is the largest branch in North America, the second-largest congregation in the denomination, with more than 12,000 members. Founded in Detroit in 1941 and moved to West Bloomfield in the 1980s, the synagogue emphasizes progressive values, including social justice and gender equality.Following the incident, security was increased at Jewish institutions across Michigan to prevent further attacks.
The deregulation cell had asked BIS to formulate various parts of the existing NBC in the form of handbooks and take them out of the Code, including the fire safety part. This is the second case when the Cabinet Secretariat has asked BIS to change the rules. The last one was to withdraw the notification related to the revised seismic code.As part of the government’s deregulation drive, the Deregulation Cell under the Cabinet Secretariat has asked BIS to take matters related to sections such as governance, development control norms and fire safety out of the NBC and leave these to the state governments and municipal authorities, as they are competent to formulate these norms.However, the Technical Committee of BIS in its last meeting had recommended that the government retain the “Fire and Life Safety” section in the NBC, which is being revised. “While taking such a decision, the committee also observed that from the recent incidents in the country and across the world, it is clear that fire safety is an important aspect and buildings which are not planned/designed/maintained for the intended purpose can turn into death traps; hence this should be addressed sincerely in the code, as every life is precious,” the minutes of the meeting mentioned.The panel also recommended that it should be part of the “building code” rather than a separate handbook.The committee has accepted several suggestions of the deregulation cell, including a provision for dividing a city into fire zones, removal of height restrictions and relaxation in the requirement of sprinkler systems for all low-hazard and small-scale industries. “The committee has agreed to modify the provisions where the suggestions have merit. But any relaxation in fire safety norms should be avoided for the sake of public safety,” a panel member said.This is the second “direct instruction” from the Cabinet Secretariat’s deregulation cell to BIS after recently asking the standards body to “immediately” withdraw a notification related to the seismic standard, said people aware of the development.Some committee members said that when the draft NBC 2025 was ready for publication after more than two years of work by experts, the deregulation cell wrote to all the states saying that it is not mandatory for them to follow the NBC. The letter dated June 25, 2025, said, “The NBC is not legally binding. It is a voluntary code for reference. It is not a ‘code’ in the legally binding sense… The subject of land and buildings is listed in List-II (State List) in the Constitution...Therefore, matters like buildings and FAR/FSI norms, setbacks, ground coverage, parking, green areas, fire regulation, etc., as well as other aspects covered in the NBC are within the exclusive legislative and executive jurisdiction of the States.“Even now, the NBC is voluntary in nature. So, the code can exist, and states can make changes in it. The government should not eliminate a technical committee of experts, which has been set up by a statutory entity,” said Ajit Kumar SM, president, Karnataka Professional Civil Engineers Act – Steering Consortium.
