Michigan synagogue attack was Hezbollah-inspired act of terrorism, FBI says

Originally Published: 30 MAR 26 15:24 ET

Updated: 30 MAR 26 15:27 ET

By Cindy Von Quednow, Holmes Lybrand, CNN

(CNN) — The attack earlier this month on a synagogue in West Bloomfield, Michigan, was “a Hezbollah-inspired act of terrorism purposely targeting the Jewish community and the largest Jewish temple in Michigan,” the FBI said in a news conference Monday.

The assailant, Ayman Ghazali, a naturalized US citizen from Lebanon, rammed a pickup truck into the synagogue on March 12, as more than 100 children were attending school inside.

In the days after the attack, US officials said Ghazali was located in federal government databases as having connections to “known or suspected terrorists” associated with Iranian-backed terrorist group Hezbollah in Lebanon.

A week prior to the attack, members of Ghazali’s family in Lebanon – including two brothers – were killed in an Israeli airstrike as the US and Israel entered its second week of conflict with Iran.

The Israeli military said that one of his brothers, Ibrahim Muhammad Ghazali, was a Hezbollah commander in charge of managing weapons operations in the Iranian proxy group’s Badr unit.

This is a developing story and will be updated.

The-CNN-Wire
™ & © 2026 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.