Man who rammed into Michigan synagogue had just lost family in an Israeli strike in Lebanon

DEARBORN HEIGHTS, Mich. (AP) — A Lebanese-born man who had learned a week earlier that four of his family members were killed in an Israeli airstrike in his native country, waited in his car outside a synagogue for two hours before ramming into the building where dozens of children were inside.

Authorities said Friday that Ayman Mohammad Ghazali, 41, crashed his car into Temple Israel outside Detroit on Thursday afternoon, then started firing his gun through the windshield, exchanging fire with an armed security guard.

Following the attack Thursday, a person familiar with the matter speaking to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity said security guards in the building killed the gunman. Later, authorities said guards “neutralized” him. But Jennifer Runyan, the special agent in charge of the FBI’s Detroit field office, said during a news conference Friday that ultimately Ghazali fatally shot himself after he got stuck in his vehicle and the engine caught fire. Officials later found large quantities of commercial grade fireworks and several jugs of a liquid believed to be gasoline.

The FBI, which is leading the investigation, described the attack on one of the nation’s largest Reform synagogues, located in suburban West Bloomfield Township north of Detroit, as an act of violence targeting the Jewish community.

Runyan said that law enforcement didn’t have enough evidence to call the attack an act of terror at this time, but said that investigations were ongoing.

None of the 140 children, teachers and staff inside the synagogue were injured, authorities said.

The agency has not provided an exact motive for the attack. “We’re just 30 hours into this, and we’re letting the facts and evidence lead,” Runyan said.

Temple Israel had taken steps to prepare for an attack. Last summer, the synagogue announced it was hiring a former local police lieutenant as its full-time head of security to oversee its in-house, armed security guards. Earlier this year, its clergy and staff underwent active shooter prevention and preparedness training, according to a post on Temple Israel's Facebook page.

Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and U.S. Sen. Elissa Slotkin during a news conference Friday praised Temple Israel’s private security for swiftly stopping the attack.

“If they had not all done their jobs almost perfectly, we would be talking about an immense tragedy here with children gone,” Slotkin said.

Ghazali lived in a single-story brick home in the Detroit suburb of Dearborn Heights about 38 miles (61 kilometers) south of the synagogue. On Friday, the front window was boarded, the front door was padlocked and an Amazon package addressed to Ghazali sat on the porch.

“In the four years I’ve lived here, we never really got past pleasantries,” said Chadi Zreik, who lives two houses down. “We all got acquainted with him in the last 24 hours.”

Ghazali came to the U.S. in 2011 on an immediate relative visa as the spouse of a U.S. citizen and was granted U.S. citizenship in 2016, according to the Department of Homeland Security.

An Israeli airstrike on March 5 killed four people in the town of Mashgharah, Lebanese officials reported. Israel has stepped up attacks on the Iranian-backed militant group Hezbollah in Lebanon as the war with Iran has spread violence across the Middle East.

A local official in Mashgharah told the AP on Friday that the airstrike killed Ghazali’s two brothers, a niece and a nephew at their home just after sunset as they were having their fast-breaking meal during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

The official, who requested anonymity because he could not publicly discuss details of the airstrike, told the AP that Kassim and Ibrahim Ghazali were killed, along with Ibrahim Ghazali’s children, Ali and Fatima. Their mother was seriously wounded and remains in the hospital, the official said.

Dearborn Heights and its larger neighbor, Dearborn, have some of the largest populations of Arab Americans in the U.S. Signs of the culture are everywhere, from restaurants to mosques.

Dearborn Heights Mayor Mo Baydoun spoke to reporters Friday about Ghazali losing family members overseas.

“That grief is real and it's heartbreaking,” Baydoun said, "But there is never an excuse for violence, especially violence directed at a sacred space.'

Osama Siblani, publisher of The Arab American News in Dearborn, said it’s common to hold a memorial service in the U.S. for someone who died overseas. “Sharing feelings always gives you comfort, whether in bad times or good times. You don’t feel like you’re alone,” Siblani said.

A flier last weekend promoted a service for Ghazali’s relatives at the Islamic Institute of America in Dearborn Heights. The mosque’s leader, Imam Hassan Qazwini, said Friday he had seen Ghazi only once. He strongly condemned the synagogue attack, saying houses of worship should be spared from political violence.

“Islam forbids holding innocent people accountable for acts done by others,” Qazwini said in a text message to an AP reporter. “The unjustified Israeli attack on civilians in Iran and Lebanon gives no blank check to anyone attacking synagogues, civilians and peaceful communities.”

Synagogues around the world have been ramping up security since the U.S. and Israel launched missile strikes against Iran on Feb. 28.

At Temple Israel, a security officer was hit by the vehicle and knocked unconscious but did not suffer life-threatening injuries, Oakland County Sheriff Mike Bouchard said. And 63 law enforcement officers were treated for smoke inhalation.

More than 600 law enforcement officers responded to the 911 calls on Thursday.

Oakland County is Michigan’s second-largest county with roughly 1.3 million people. The majority of Detroit-area Jewish residents live there. Temple Israel has 12,000 members, according to its website.

The attack was the second at a house of worship in Michigan within the past year. Last September, a former Marine fatally shot four people at a church north of Detroit and set it ablaze. The FBI later said he was motivated by “anti-religious beliefs” against The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

White reported from Detroit. AP journalists Alanna Durkin Richer in Washington, Russ Bynum in Savannah, Georgia, Safiyah Riddle in Montgomery, Alabama, and Hallie Golden in Seattle contributed.

The exterior the home of Ayman Mohamad Ghazali is shown in Friday, March 13, 2026, in Dearborn Heights, Mich. (AP Photo/Paul Sancya)

A police vehicle sits outside the Temple Israel synagogue Friday, March 13, 2026, in West Bloomfield Township, Mich. (AP Photo/Paul Sancya)

Police tape hangs outside the Temple Israel synagogue Friday, March 13, 2026, in West Bloomfield Township, Mich. (AP Photo/Paul Sancya)

Police tape hangs outside the Temple Israel synagogue Friday, March 13, 2026, in West Bloomfield Township, Mich. (AP Photo/Paul Sancya)

Police vehicles sit outside the Temple Israel synagogue Friday, March 13, 2026, in West Bloomfield Township, Mich. (AP Photo/Paul Sancya)

Police vehicles sit outside the Temple Israel synagogue Friday, March 13, 2026, in West Bloomfield Township, Mich. (AP Photo/Paul Sancya)

Law enforcement escort families away from the Temple Israel synagogue Thursday, March 12, 2026, in West Bloomfield Township, Mich. (AP Photo/Paul Sancya)

Law enforcement escort families with children away from the Temple Israel synagogue Thursday, March 12, 2026, in West Bloomfield Township, Mich. (AP Photo/Paul Sancya)

Law enforcement escort families with children away from the Temple Israel synagogue Thursday, March 12, 2026, in West Bloomfield Township, Mich. (AP Photo/Paul Sancya)

Law enforcement respond to a call at Temple Israel synagogue Thursday, March 12, 2026, in West Bloomfield Township, Mich. (AP Photo/Paul Sancya)

Law enforcement respond to a call at Temple Israel synagogue, Thursday, March 12, 2026 in West Bloomfield Township, Mich. (AP Photo/Corey Williams)

DAKAR, Senegal (AP) — A funeral was held Thursday for Mali 's former defense minister, Gen. Sadio Camara, a key architect of the military government’s security partnership with Russia.

Camara was killed during last weekend's coordinated militant attack in the West African nation, the largest in over a decade.

His death, and the major setback endured by the Malian army and its Russian mercenary allies, risk creating divisions within the junta and could lead it to reconsider its partnership with Moscow, analysts say.

After two days of national mourning, a funeral ceremony for Camara was attended by junta leader Gen. Assimi Goita and broadcast live on national television. The coffin was draped in the green, yellow and red of the Malian flag while large portraits of the former defense minister lined the ceremony hall.

Camara was born in 1979 in Kati, the same garrison town near the capital Bamako where he was killed when a car bomb exploded outside his home on Saturday.

As a field officer, he was deployed to northern Mali in the late 2000s, amid a rise in rebellions by armed groups, some linked to Al-Qaeda. After graduating from a military academy, he went abroad on several training assignments, including at a military academy in Russia.

Malians first became familiar with Camara when, as a colonel, he appeared on national television in August 2020 among a group of five officers who had overthrown President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita.

The officers accused Keita of being propped up by France and not doing enough to contain the rampant militant attacks in the country. They pledged to provide more security.

Following the coup, the new junta turned to Russia as its new security partner, expelling French troops and U.N. peacekeepers.

Camara quickly came to play a central role in establishing Russia as Mali's main security partner. He served as defense minister under both of Mali’s successive military governments — first following the 2020 coup and then reappointed after a second coup in May 2021 which brought Goïta to power.

Ulf Laessing, head of the Sahel program at the Germany-based Konrad Adenauer Foundation, said Camara was the “architect of cooperation with Russia,” proposing the deployment of Russian mercenaries in 2021 and the expulsion of the U.N. peacekeeping mission, known as MINUSMA.

Camara, who made frequent trips to Moscow, played a key role in the coups and his stewardship of the war effort made him an indispensable figure for the junta despite a deteriorating security situation, according to Laessing.

On Monday, the recently created Africa Corps — a Russian military unit that reports to the defense ministry in Moscow, estimated to have around 2,000 troops in Mali — said its fighters had withdrawn from Kidal, two days after separatists said they had taken the key northern city.

Rida Lyammouri, senior fellow at the Policy Center for the New South, a Morocco-based think tank, said Camara's death and a growing frustration from the population and military leadership over the Russian mercenaries inability to curb the insurgencies, could result in the junta reconsidering its partnership with Moscow.

Goita, who met with the Russian ambassador to Mali on Tuesday, “seems open to collaboration with some Western countries, such as the United States,” said Laessing.

Soldiers wait for the start of the funeral for Mali's former defense minister Sadio Camara at the Military Engineering Parade Ground in Bamako, Mali, Thursday, April 30, 2026. (AP Photo/Boubacary Bocoum)

Soldiers wait for the start of the funeral for Mali's former defense minister Sadio Camara at the Military Engineering Parade Ground in Bamako, Mali, Thursday, April 30, 2026. (AP Photo/Boubacary Bocoum)

Mali's junta leader Gen. Assimi Goita attends the funeral of former defense minister Sadio Camara at the Military Engineering Parade Ground in Bamako, Mali, Thursday, April 30, 2026. (AP Photo/Boubacary Bocoum)

The flag draped casket that contains the remains of Mali's former defense minister Sadio Camara during a funeral ceremony at the Military Engineering Parade Ground in Bamako, Mali, Thursday, April 30, 2026. (AP Photo/Boubacary Bocoum)

FILE - Mali's Defense Minister Sadio Camara enters a hall for a talk in Moscow, Russia, on Feb. 28, 2024. (Maxim Shipenkov/Pool Photo via AP, File)