Michigan synagogue attack suspect had been flagged by feds for links to suspected Hezbollah members

By Casey Tolan, John Miller, Charbel Mallo, Jeff Winter, CNN

(CNN) — The suspect in Thursday’s attack on a Michigan synagogue had previously been flagged in US government databases for connections with suspected members of the militant group Hezbollah, although he was not believed to be a member himself, law enforcement officials briefed on the matter told CNN.

The Department of Homeland Security said that Ayman Mohamad Ghazali, 41, drove a vehicle laden with explosives into Temple Israel in West Bloomfield Township near Detroit. It then caught fire, in what the FBI called a “targeted act of violence against the Jewish community.” The FBI said the agency is continuing to investigate the attack.

A week before the attack, Ghazali’s two brothers and two of their children were killed in an Israeli airstrike in Lebanon, the mayor of the Lebanese village where they lived told CNN.

Ghazali was killed after security officers for the synagogue engaged him and “neutralized the threat,” West Bloomfield Police Chief Dale Young said Thursday. One security officer was hurt in the attack, and at least 30 law enforcement officers were treated for smoke inhalation, authorities said.

According to law enforcement officials briefed on the matter, Ghazali shows up in federal government databases as having connections to “known or suspected terrorists” associated with Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Ghazali, who is a naturalized US citizen from Lebanon, is not listed in the government databases as a member of Hezbollah himself, they added.

According to the officials, Ghazali’s last foreign travel was from the United States to Lebanon in 2019. He returned to the US through Atlanta, where he was flagged in DHS systems for “threshold targeting” based on prior records of his contact with suspected Hezbollah members.

In an interview with Customs and Border Protection agents at the time, Ghazali said he had traveled abroad to receive hair transplant treatment. Ghazali’s phone was inspected by CBP, and agents found individuals who were known or suspected Hezbollah members in his contacts, according to the officials. It is not clear who those contacts were, or what Ghazali’s relationship to them was.

More recently, Ghazali had lost family members in the ongoing conflict in Lebanon. Iskandar Barakeh, the mayor of Mashghara, Lebanon, said in a phone interview that Ghazali’s brothers, Kassim and Ibrahim, were killed in an Israeli airstrike there on March 5, along with Ibrahim’s children, Ali and Fatima. The two men’s wives and Ghazali’s parents also sustained injuries, Barakeh said.

Three Israeli airstrikes have recently hit the village, which is about 30 miles southeast of Beirut, including an attack on a financial institution associated with Hezbollah that damaged a nearby school, according to Barakeh. While some residents initially left the village, many have begun returning recently, he said.

Mo Baydoun, the mayor of Dearborn Heights, the Detroit suburb where Ghazali lived, also said in a statement that Ghazali had lost family members in Lebanon in an Israeli attack. “Everyone deserves to worship in peace, and we must unequivocally condemn any attack on a house of worship or the people within it,” Baydoun said.

Ghazali came to the US from Lebanon in 2011 after receiving a visa as the spouse of a US citizen, the DHS said in a statement. He became a naturalized US citizen in 2016.

He worked at a Middle Eastern restaurant in Dearborn Heights, an employee at the restaurant said. A manager at the restaurant declined to comment further.

Ghazali’s wife filed for divorce in August 2024, and the divorce was finalized in March 2025, according to Wayne County court records.

CNN’s Rob Kuznia and Blake Ellis contributed to this report.

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