Ayman Mohamed Ghazali drove a Ford F-150 loaded with commercial fireworks and gasoline jugs into Temple Israel synagogue in West Bloomfield Township, Michigan, just after noon on March 12. He had sat in the parking lot for two hours first. Inside the building, 140 children were in the early childhood center and kindergarten.
Ghazali rammed the truck into a door on the southeast corner of the building, jammed the vehicle in a hallway, and exchanged gunfire with at least two security guards. The truck’s engine caught fire. He died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound while still inside. Sixty-three law enforcement officers were hospitalized for smoke inhalation. Nobody inside the synagogue was hurt.
Ghazali, 41, was a restaurant worker in Dearborn Heights, a Detroit suburb. He was Lebanese-born, naturalized as a U.S. citizen in February 2016, and recently divorced with two young children.
On March 5, an Israeli drone strike in Mashghara, Lebanon, killed his brothers Kassim and Ibrahim, both members of a Hezbollah rocket unit. Two of Ibrahim’s children died in the strike as well. After the strike, Ghazali stopped going to work and spent time alone. Before driving to the synagogue, he called his ex-wife and told her to take care of their children.
Federal records show U.S. authorities had flagged Ghazali before the attack. When he returned to the United States through Atlanta, Customs and Border Protection pulled him for “threshold targeting” based on prior records of contact with suspected Hezbollah members. CBP agents interviewed him and inspected his phone. They found known or suspected Hezbollah members among his contacts, according to law enforcement officials briefed on the matter and reported by CNN.
The findings did not produce an FBI investigation. Jennifer Runyan, Special Agent in Charge of the FBI’s Detroit field office, confirmed at a Friday briefing that Ghazali had no criminal record, no registered weapons, and had never been the subject of an FBI investigation. The CBP findings stayed with CBP.
Temple Israel had hardened its own security before March 12. Physical bollards surrounded the building. Armed guards were on site, and Oakland County Sheriff Michael Bouchard had texted the synagogue’s head of security two days earlier. In January, the FBI’s Detroit field office had conducted active-shooter training for Temple Israel staff and clergy — the same office that never opened an investigation after CBP found Hezbollah contacts on Ghazali’s phone.
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