The Michigan shooter who tried to murder toddlers at a Jewish pre-K was Ayman Ghazali, a naturalised US citizen from Lebanon, and his two brothers were believed to be Hezbollah terrorists.
Ghazali rammed his car, loaded with mortar shells, into Temple Israel in West Bloomfield on Thursday, but officials said security guards opened fire on him and stopped him from carrying out further carnage, The New York Post reported.
A 2019 photo obtained by The Post showed Ghazali with a blank stare, closely cropped hair and a shaven face. A second image confirmed by The Post showed him with a full beard.
The attack came after two of his brothers and a niece and nephew were killed in airstrikes at their home in Lebanon, a local official in Mashgharah told the Associated Press on Friday.
The two siblings were believed to be members of Iranian-backed Hezbollah, law enforcement sources told The Post.
The relatives were killed just after sunset as they were breaking fast during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, the local official told AP.
Ghazali, a Dearborn Heights resident, was believed to have first entered the US in 2011 and was granted citizenship by 2016, sources said.
He was questioned by authorities in Atlanta in 2019 after returning from a trip overseas and was known to travel to Lebanon, sources said. He claimed when questioned that he went abroad for a hair transplant, sources said.
Sources said he also had contacts on his phone of known Hezbollah members. The FBI followed up on situation, but it was unclear what the outcome was, sources said.
