IDF says slain brother of Michigan synagogue attacker was a Hezbollah commander

The brother of an armed man who rammed his truck into a Reform synagogue and preschool in Michigan last week was a Hezbollah commander, the Israel Defense Forces said on Sunday, confirming earlier reports on the matter.

“Hezbollah commander Ibrahim Muhammad Ghazali was responsible for managing weapons operations within a specialized branch of the Badr Unit. The unit is responsible for launching hundreds of rockets toward Israeli civilians throughout the war,” the IDF said in a post on X.

His brother Ayman Mohamad Ghazali, 41, carried out the Thursday attack.

The IDF said that Ibrahim was “eliminated in an IAF strike on a Hezbollah military structure.”

Several of the Michigan attacker’s Lebanese relatives were killed in an Israeli airstrike earlier this month amid the renewed fighting between Israel and the Hezbollah terror group, multiple reports said.

An unnamed official had told NBC News that the strike killed two of Ghazali’s brothers, who were known to be members of the Hezbollah terror group, in addition to his niece and nephew.

Sources told CNN that Ghazali had been flagged in US government databases for connections to members of Hezbollah, but was not thought himself to be a member of the terror group.

Security guards opened fire on Ghazali after he smashed a truck through the doors of the Temple Israel synagogue and preschool in West Bloomfield, near Detroit.

Jennifer Runyan, the special agent in charge of the FBI’s Detroit field office, said during a news conference Friday that ultimately Ghazali fatally shot himself after he got stuck in his vehicle and the engine caught fire.

Officials later found large quantities of commercial-grade fireworks and several jugs of a liquid believed to be gasoline.

The FBI, which is leading the investigation, has described the attack as an act of violence targeting the Jewish community.

Runyan said that law enforcement didn’t have enough evidence to call the attack an act of terror at this time, but that investigations were ongoing.

None of the 140 children, teachers and staff inside the synagogue were injured, authorities said.

According to the US Department of Homeland Security, Ghazali came to the United States in 2011 on an IR1 immigrant visa, given to spouses of US citizens, and was granted citizenship himself in 2016.

He worked at a popular restaurant in Dearborn Heights, Hamido, but had been absent in recent weeks, fellow employees told The New York Times. He was divorced and had at least one child, according to The Detroit News, which cited court records.