A man took multiple hostages, reportedly including a rabbi, at a Texas synagogue during a Saturday service that had been streamed live on Facebook.
The Colleyville Police Department said officers were conducting a SWAT operation on the same block as Congregation Beth Israel after fielding a call at 10:41 a.m. local time. Before it was taken offline, the livestream depicted an angry man shouting, sometimes about religion, and periodically engaging with law enforcement ― but the feed did not show exactly what was happening.
“I’m going to die at the end of this, all right? Are you listening? I am going to die,” the man said shortly before the Facebook stream cut off.
CNN reported that the synagogue’s rabbi was among the four hostages, citing a law enforcement source. The suspect claims to have planted bombs at unknown locations, ABC News reported.
The FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives joined local authorities at the scene, and authorities evacuated people living nearby. No injuries have been reported, the Colleyville Police Department said late Saturday afternoon.
It is unclear how the man is armed at the synagogue. He claimed that convicted terrorist Aafia Siddiqui is his sister, according to ABC News, although it was not immediately clear whether he intended to suggest they were biologically related.
A lawyer for Siddiqui’s biological brother confirmed in a statement that it was not Muhammad Siddiqui holding people hostage.
The suspect, who is in contact with FBI negotiators, is believed to want Siddiqui released.
Siddiqui, a Pakistani neuroscientist and MIT graduate, was accused of having ties to al Qaeda and sentenced to 86 years in 2010 for trying to murder American soldiers in Afghanistan. In 2008, she had grabbed a soldier’s M4 rifle and used it to shoot at another soldier while being pulled in for questioning; during the attack she “exclaimed her intent and desire to kill Americans,” according to the Justice Department. Siddiqui was wounded by gunfire during the incident.
During her trial, Siddiqui expressed hostility toward Jewish people, suggesting at one point that potential jurors undergo genetic testing to confirm they are not Jewish. She is currently imprisoned at a medical facility near Fort Worth.
Colleyville lies between Dallas and Fort Worth in northern Texas.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations numbers among the pro-Pakistan and human rights activists advocating for Siddiqui’s release, saying that she has been attacked by other inmates. One person allegedly smashed a mug of hot liquid onto her face, the group said in a press release last summer. CAIR and other supporters of Siddiqui, a mother of three, allege that she has been falsely accused by the U.S. government.
The group condemned Saturday’s attack in a statement calling it an “unacceptable act of evil.”
“No cause can justify or excuse this crime,” CAIR National Deputy Director Edward Ahmed Mitchell said.
In 2018, Pakistan’s senate unanimously passed a resolution calling on the U.S. government to take steps to release Siddiqui, labeling her “Daughter of the Nation.”
Terrorist groups have demanded her release, too. In 2014, ISIS offered to exchange Siddiqui for American journalist James Foley, who was later beheaded. ISIS then offered to trade her for American journalist Steven Sotloff before he was similarly executed.
President Joe Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett are aware of the situation; Bennett said in a tweet that he was “closely monitoring” it.
“We pray for the safety of the hostages and rescuers,” Bennett wrote.
