The FBI reversed its position late Sunday on the Texas synagogue hostage-taker, acknowledging it was a case of terrorism after first improbably insisting the suspect’s motives were unclear.
British citizen Malik Faisal Akram took members of the Congregation Beth Israel synagogue hostage during their livestreamed Saturday services, capturing the rabbi and three others. After an 11-hour standoff between Akram and the police and the FBI, the hostages escaped, and Akram was killed by law enforcement.
“During the negotiations with law enforcement, the hostage taker, Malik Faisal Akram, spoke repeatedly about a convicted terrorist who is serving an 86-year prison sentence in the United States on terrorism charges,” the FBI said. “This is a terrorism-related matter, in which the Jewish community was targeted, and is being investigated by the Joint Terrorism Task Force.”
Akram was demanding the release of Aafia Siddiqui, a Pakistani woman who was convicted in 2010 and sentenced to 86 years in prison after being charged in 2008 for plotting to kill U.S. service members in Afghanistan. Siddiqui, an alleged al Qaeda member, virulent antisemite, and heroine among jihadis, is imprisoned at a federal prison in Fort Worth, roughly half an hour away from the synagogue.
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The FBI’s new comments marked a shift from what a key FBI official said Saturday night immediately following the hostage-taking, when he distanced the motive from any link to the Jewish community.
“We do believe from our engagement with this subject that he was singularly focused on one issue, and it was not specifically related to the Jewish community,” Matthew DeSarno, the FBI Dallas special agent in charge, told reporters Saturday. “But we’re continuing to work to find motive, and we will continue on that path.”
President Joe Biden said on Sunday that “this was an act of terror” as he revealed that the hostage-taker allegedly spent his first night in the U.S. in a homeless shelter and illegally acquired his firearm “on the street.” Akram reportedly arrived in the U.S. through New York City’s John F. Kennedy International Airport roughly two weeks ago.
Biden also claimed that “I don’t think there is sufficient information to know about why he targeted that synagogue or why he insisted on the release of someone who’s been in prison for over 10 years” or “why he was using antisemitic and anti-Israeli comments. … We just don’t have enough facts.”
British law enforcement tweeted Sunday that counterterror police officers “made two arrests” related to the Texas hostage-taking and that “two teenagers were detained.” A spokesperson for British Prime Minister Boris Johnson called the hostage-taking “a terrible and antisemitic act of terrorism.”
Akram called Siddiqui his “sister” during the livestream — she was not the convicted terrorist’s biological brother, though, and Akram was likely just using common parlance referring to a religious or ideological compatriot. During the livestream, Akram indicated he targeted a synagogue when trying to free Siddiqui because he believed the U.S. “only cares about Jewish lives.”
The Council on American-Islamic Relations has repeatedly protested in favor of Siddiqui’s release, but it condemned the hostage-taking.
Siddiqui is a Pakistani-born but U.S.-educated neuroscientist who studied at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Brandeis University. She returned to Pakistan after 9/11 and again in 2003 during the war in Afghanistan, and she disappeared after being added to the FBI’s Most Wanted list until her capture in Afghanistan by Afghan authorities.
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When detained, she allegedly was in possession of handwritten notes referring to a “mass casualty attack” in the U.S. and a list of New York City landmarks, such as the Empire State Building and the Brooklyn Bridge. The U.S. said that during her interrogation, she “grabbed a U.S. Army officer’s M-4 rifle and fired it at another U.S. Army officer and other members of U.S. interview team.” She was convicted in Manhattan on numerous crimes, including “attempting to kill U.S. nationals outside the United States” and “attempting to kill U.S. officers and employees.”
