The Texas synagogue terrorist who held four people hostage has been identified by the FBI.
On Saturday, a man armed with “backpacks of explosives” stormed the Congregation Beth Israel synagogue in Colleyville, Texas, before taking four people hostage while a religious service was in progress.
Amid his negotiations with the authorities, the gunman called for the release of convicted Pakistani terrorist Aafia Siddiqui who is serving time at a US prison.
At around 9 pm, after an hours-long standoff, the SWAT team stormed the synagogue and shot the terrorist dead. No hostage was injured before or during the rescue mission.
Following the showdown, the FBI has identified the terrorist as 44-year-old British citizen Malik Faisal Akram who lived in Blackburn.
The gunman’s family has since spoken out to share their grief over the loss of Akram while condemning his actions at the same time.
“It is with great great sadness I will confirm my brother Faisal passed away in Texas, USA this morning. We are absolutely devastated as a family. We can’t say much now as their is an ongoing FBI investigation,” Gulbar Akram, the attacker’s brother, said.
“We would like to say that we as a family do not condone any of his actions and would like to sincerely apologize wholeheartedly to all the victims involved in the unfortunate incident.
“Sitting in the incident room all last night at Greenbank until the early hours liaising with Faisal, the negotiators, FBI etc. And although my brother was suffering from mental health issues we were confident that he would not harm the hostages.”
In their statement, the family added: “There was nothing we could have said to him or done that would have convinced him to surrender.
“Obviously our priority will be to get him back to the UK for his funeral prayers although we have been warned it could take weeks.
“We would also like to add that any attack on any human being be it a Jew, Christian or Muslim etc is wrong and should always be condemned. It is absolutely inexcusable for a Muslim to attack a Jew or for any Jew to attack a Muslim, Christian, Hindu vice versa etc.”
After the confrontation was put to an end, the authorities have also confirmed that two teenagers were arrested in Manchester over their alleged connection to the terrorist. Both teens remain in custody as of this writing.
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