DHS identifies suspect in Temple Israel attack as Lebanese immigrant

The suspect in the Temple Israel attack has been identified by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) as a 41-year-old immigrant from Lebanon who is a U.S. citizen.

Ayman Mohamad Ghazali carried out “the tragic attack on Temple Israel synagogue in West Bloomfield,” a spokesperson for the department told the Free Press in a statement late March 12. Ghazali was killed in the attack, a security guard was injured and the temple partially burned in a fire.

The department did not say where Ghazali lived. A neighbor told the Detroit Free Press he lived in Dearborn Heights, west of Detroit, and recently lost family in an Israeli strike in Lebanon. Dearborn Heights Mayor Mo Baydoun said in a statement the suspect “lost several members of his own family, including his niece and nephew, in an Israeli attack on their home in Lebanon” earlier in March.

Ghazali was born in Lebanon in January 1985 and entered the U.S. in May 2010 on an IR1 immigrant visa as the spouse of a U.S. citizen, DHS said. He had filed alien relative and fiancé petitions in December 2009, which were approved in April 2010.

He applied for naturalization in 2015 and was granted U.S. citizenship on Feb. 5, 2016. DHS did not provide details on his motivation. The neighbor said Ghazali had a brother recently killed in Lebanon in an Israeli strike.

Israel has been targeting Lebanon frequently after the war with Iran started on Feb. 28. More than 600 have been killed in Lebanon and hundreds of thousands evacuated, according to Reuters and other media outlets. Wayne County has the highest percentage of Lebanese Americans among counties in the U.S., many of them with family affected by the war.

On the block where some neighbors said Ghazali lived, there were no police cars observed on Wednesday evening. A Free Press reporter was approached by two men on the block, grilling the reporter about why she was there. At first they wouldn’t say they were officers — they were in plain clothes — but eventually relented, telling the reporter they were police from Oakland County and admitted they were waiting on something, but wouldn’t say what.

After that interaction, Kandie Zaidieh, who has lived on the block for 30 years, poked her head out of the door. She was curious.

“Do you know what’s going on?” She asked the reporter, who in return asked if she knew Ghazali, and if she had heard what happened in West Bloomfield earlier that day.

“I thought that guy died,” she said initially. But then she began to put the pieces together. Her eyes widened.

“Oh s— …. Oh my God,” she said.

“Because his brother died, right?” She relayed that she found out the previous night that his brother was killed in Lebanon. She had planned to bring Ghazali flowers.

“Oh my God, I’m feeling really … If he’s dead.. oh my.”

Zaidieh described Ghazali as “my rock.”

“He was the best. The best neighbor. Always quiet, a hard worker. He was always pleasant. Everybody liked him,” she said.

“I’m not going to say ‘was.’ Is.”

And he always treated her well, she said. “Always. Always. Always.”

She looked over at his house a few doors down.

“He always has a light on,” she said. But that night?

“The house is dark.”

Employees at the popular shawarma stop, Hamido, down the street told the Free Press he worked there and was “so, so nice” but wouldn’t grant an interview.

Contact Andrea Sahouri: asahouri@freepress.com. Contact Niraj Warikoo: nwarikoo@freepress.com

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Homeland Security said Ayman Ghazali carried out Temple Israel attack.