The Michigan shooter who tried to kill Jewish pre-kindergarten toddlers is Ayman Ghazali, a naturalized American citizen from Lebanon, whose two brothers are believed to be Hezbollah terrorists.The New York Post reported that 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 prevented him from committing further massacres.A photo obtained by The Post in 2019 showed El-Ghazali with a blank stare, short hair and a shaved face. A second photo confirmed by The Post showed him with a full beard.The attack came after two of his brothers, a niece and a nephew were killed in air strikes on their home in Lebanon, a local official in Mashghara told The Associated Press on Friday.
Law enforcement sources told The Washington Post that the brothers are believed to be members of the Iranian-backed Hezbollah group.The local official told the Associated Press that their relatives were killed just after sunset while they were breaking their fast during the holy month of Ramadan.Ghazali, a Dearborn Heights resident, is believed to have first entered the United States in 2011 and obtained citizenship by 2016, the sources said.The sources said that the authorities interrogated him in Atlanta in 2019 after he returned from a trip abroad and he was known to have traveled to Lebanon. The sources said that he claimed when asked that he had traveled abroad to undergo a hair transplant.The sources said that he had contacts on his phone with known members of Hezbollah. The FBI followed up on the situation, but the outcome was not clear, the sources said.
