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An armed suspect is holding at least four people hostage at a synagogue near Fort Worth, Texas Saturday.
The Fort Worth Star-Telegram reports that the FBI and Texas Department of Public Safety were negotiating with the suspect, who entered the Colleyville, Texas’ Congregation Beth Israel during Saturday morning services. At least four people — including Rabbi Charlie Cytron-Walker — were believed to be among the hostages.
The suspect also threatened that he had bombs in the area. Soon after taking the hostages, the suspect was heard negotiating with authorities via a Facebook livestream for the synagogue’s service. On the livestream — which was being viewed by 8,000 people before it was abruptly turned off — the male suspect could be heard ranting about religion and demanding the release of his sister.
According to ABC News, the suspect is believed to be demanding the release of convicted terrorist Aafia Siddiqui, the woman known as “Lady al Qaeda” who was sentenced to 86 years in prison for the assault and attempted murder of a U.S. soldier during a 2010 interrogation; Siddiqui, who allegedly had ties to al-Qaida, is behind bars at Carswell Air Force Base near Fort Worth.
https://www.rollingstone.com/cultur...i-podcast-omar-hammami-visual-trailer-907587/
In 2014, following reports that ISIS demanded the release of Siddiqui in exchange for a 26-year-old American woman who was kidnapped in Syria, Siddiqui’s family said in a statement, “While we deeply appreciate the sincere feelings of those who, like us, wish to see the freedom of our beloved Aafia, we cannot agree with a ‘by any means necessary’ approach to Aafia’s freedom. Nor can we accept that someone else’s daughter or sister suffer like Aafia is suffering.” (ISIS had previously demanded Siddiqui’s release in exchange for murdered American journalist James Foley.)
“Negotiators have contact with this person and are working to come to a safe resolution,” Colleyville Police Sgt. Dara Nelson told reporters, adding that there was “no threat to the general public.”
“I am closely monitoring the unfolding hostage situation at Congregation Beth Israel in Colleyville,” Fort Worth Rep. Marc Veasey tweeted. “I know the Rabbi and his wife Adena very well. I’m praying for his safety and his congregants, and hope that this situation is resolved soon.”
Congregation Beth Israel synagogue, established in 1999, was the first Jewish congregation in Northeast Tarrant County, CNN reports.
The Anti-Defamation League tweeted Saturday, “ADL is aware of the ongoing situation in Colleyville, TX and is engaged with local and federal authorities and the community’s leaders.”
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'Lady Al Qaeda' the woman Texas synagogue hostage-taker wants freed: She planned chemical attacks on Empire State Building and Brooklyn Bridge and demanded juror at her trial be DNA tested to see if they were Jewish
PUBLISHED: 16:49 EST, 15 January 2022 | UPDATED: 20:07 EST, 15 January 2022
View comments
The man who stormed a Texas synagogue on the Sabbath and is holding hostages is suspected to be the brother of the notorious 'Lady Al Qaeda,' who is serving 86 years in a federal prison less than 30 miles from the hostage standoff.
The suspect claims his 'sister' is Aafia Siddiqui, a known terrorist who is incarcerated at Carswell Air Force Base near Fort Worth and he is demanding to have her freed, according to a source.
Siddiqui was arrested in Afghanistan in 2008 by local forces who found her with two kilos of poison sodium cyanide and plans for chemical attacks on New York’s Brooklyn Bridge and the Empire State Building.
The Pakistani-born neuroscientist had bragged to her student friends at the age of just 21 that she would be proud to be on the FBI’s Most Wanted list.
She is serving an 86-year sentence at the Federal Medical Center, Carswell in Fort Worth, about 25 miles from the hostage site at the Texas temple.
During her trial, Aafia demanded that every jury member get DNA tested to see if they were Jewish.
+3
Two handout photos of terror suspect Aafia Siddiqui released by the FBI in May of 2004
+3
She was arrested in Afghanistan in 2008 by local forces who found her with two kilos of poison sodium cyanide and plans for chemical attacks on New York’s Brooklyn Bridge and the Empire State Building
Siddiqui, who was a biology major at MIT, said in 1993 that she wanted to do ‘something to help our Muslim brothers and sisters’ even if it meant breaking the law.
She jumped to her feet and ‘raised her skinny little wrists in the air’ in a display of defiance that shocked her friends.
An in-depth account of her journey to infamy also reveals that she took a National Rifle Association shooting class and persuaded other Muslims to learn how to fire a gun.
Siddiqui lied to her husband and after they wed over the phone he was stunned to discover she was just marrying him for his family’s connections to better enable her to wage jihad.
Siddiqui, a mother-of-three, eventually got her twisted wish and became the most wanted woman in the world by the FBI.
She was handed to the Americans and convicted of attempted murder in a U.S. court in 2010.
But her hatred for the U.S. was so strong that during her interrogation she grabbed a rifle from one of her guards and shot at them shouting: ‘Death to Americans’.
A 2014 Boston Globe profile of Siddiqui’s time in Boston sought to answer what happened during her 11 years as a student in the U.S.
Something happened to radicalize an intelligent and devout woman who not only graduated from MIT but also got a doctorate in neuroscience from Brandeis University.
Siddiqui was sent by her neurosurgeon father from Pakistan to study in the U.S. on her own and won a partial scholarship to study at MIT in Cambridge, MA.
She arrived there in 1991 having been living with her brother in Texas, for a year where she studied at the University of Houston and gave regular speeches on Islam.
+3
Aafia Siddiqui, the Al Qaeda operative dubbed ‘Lady Al Qaeda’, bragged to her student friends at the age of just 21 that she would be proud to be on the FBI’s Most Wanted list
During one she told the crowd: ‘The hijab is not a restriction. It allows a woman to be judged by her content, not by her packaging, by what is written on the pages, not the pretty artwork on the cover’
At MIT she made few friends and was remembered as intelligent, driven and a regular at the Prospect Street mosque, which would later be attended by alleged Boston Marathon bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev.
She wore long sleeves and the hijab and was seen as ‘very sweet’ for a former roommate at her all-female dorm.
The focus of her life was the Muslim Student Association but things appear to have changed with the start of the Bosnian War, which seems to have been the beginning of her radicalization.
Siddiqui became involved with the Al-Kifah Refugee Centre, a Brooklyn-based organisation which is thought to have been Al Qaeda’s focus of operations in the US.
Terrorism expert Evan Kohlmann said: ‘Aafia was from a prominent family with connections and a sympathy for jihad. She was just what they needed.’
In 1993 as she and some friends debated how to raise money for Muslims being killed during the Bosnian War, one of them joked that they didn’t want to go on the FBI’s Most Wanted List.
Waqas Jilani, then a graduate student at Clark University, said: ‘She raised her skinny little wrists in the air and said: ‘I’d be proud to be on the Most Wanted list because it would mean I’m doing something to help our Muslim brothers and sisters’
‘She said we should all be proud to be on that list’.
That same year Siddiqui did a 10-hour NRA shooting course at Braintree Rifle & Pistol Club on her own and urged other Muslims to join her.
Jilani added that Siddiqui said in her speeches that Muslims should ‘get training and go overseas and fight’.
He said: ‘We were all laughing like, ‘Uh-oh, Aafia’s got a gun!’
‘Part of it was because she was such a bad shot, but also because she was always mouthing off about the U.S. and the FBI being so bad and all.’
Siddiqui married Mohammed Amjad Khan, the son of a wealthy Pakistani family, in a ceremony carried out over the phone before he flew to Boston.
But upon arrival he discovered that far from being the quiet religious woman he had been promised, her life was very different.
He said: ‘I discovered that the well-being of our nascent family unit was not her prime goal in life. Instead, it was to gain prominence in Muslim circles.’
Khan described to the Boston Globe how she regularly watched videos of Osama bin Laden, spent weekends at terror training camps in New Hampshire with activists from Al-Kifah and begged him to quit his medical job so he could join her.
In the end he stopped bringing work colleagues home because she would ‘only to talk about them converting to Islam’.
Khan said: ‘Invariably this would lead to unpleasantness, so I decided to keep my work separate....
‘...By now, all her focus had shifted to jihad against America, instead of preaching to Americans so that they all become Muslims and America becomes a Muslim land’.
The breaking point was the September 11 2001 attacks after which Siddiqui, who was by now dressing in all black, insisted they return to Pakistan and got a divorce.
American officials suspect she remarried Ammar Al-Baluchi, the nephew of 9/11 architect Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, though her family deny this.
Siddiqui and her children disappeared in Karachi, Pakistan in 2003 shortly after Mohammed was arrested.
The following year she was named by FBI director Robert Mueller as one of the seven most wanted Al Qaeda operatives, and the only woman.
What happened in Pakistan before her arrest is unclear and even during her U.S. trial judge Richard Berman said he did not know what she was doing.
But even now such is her importance as a symbol of defiance to the West that Islamic State fighters publicly stated they wanted to swap her for James Foley, the American photojournalist they executed earlier this year.
Siddiqui declined to be interviewed when approached by the Boston Globe at the Federal Prison in Fort Worth, Texas, where she is being held.
Now her, brother, who is an architect in Houston, is apparently holding hostages in Colleyville.
The assailant stormed into Congregation Beth Israel during religious services around 11.30am, which were being live-streamed, telling a SWAT team, 'If anyone tries to enter this building, I’m telling you… everyone will die.'
The live-stream cut off shortly before 2pm local time, where the man can be heard saying: 'I'm going to die.'
According to Star-Telegram reporter Jessika Harkay, he was overheard saying: 'I'm going to die, are you listening? I'm going to die doing this alright? Are you listening? I'm going to die. Don't cry about me.'
It is unclear who he was saying this too.
He reportedly also ranted about religion in between saying that he's 'going to die,' as well as made vague references to weapons and ammunition.
It is unknown if there are any injuries or fatalities at this moment.
He reportedly has taken four hostages and has placed bombs around the temple. Among the hostage's is Rabbi Charlie Cytron-Walker, whose condition and location is unknown.
www.dailymail.co.uk
The Fort Worth Star-Telegram reports that the FBI and Texas Department of Public Safety were negotiating with the suspect, who entered the Colleyville, Texas’ Congregation Beth Israel during Saturday morning services. At least four people — including Rabbi Charlie Cytron-Walker — were believed to be among the hostages.
The suspect also threatened that he had bombs in the area. Soon after taking the hostages, the suspect was heard negotiating with authorities via a Facebook livestream for the synagogue’s service. On the livestream — which was being viewed by 8,000 people before it was abruptly turned off — the male suspect could be heard ranting about religion and demanding the release of his sister.
According to ABC News, the suspect is believed to be demanding the release of convicted terrorist Aafia Siddiqui, the woman known as “Lady al Qaeda” who was sentenced to 86 years in prison for the assault and attempted murder of a U.S. soldier during a 2010 interrogation; Siddiqui, who allegedly had ties to al-Qaida, is behind bars at Carswell Air Force Base near Fort Worth.
https://www.rollingstone.com/cultur...i-podcast-omar-hammami-visual-trailer-907587/
In 2014, following reports that ISIS demanded the release of Siddiqui in exchange for a 26-year-old American woman who was kidnapped in Syria, Siddiqui’s family said in a statement, “While we deeply appreciate the sincere feelings of those who, like us, wish to see the freedom of our beloved Aafia, we cannot agree with a ‘by any means necessary’ approach to Aafia’s freedom. Nor can we accept that someone else’s daughter or sister suffer like Aafia is suffering.” (ISIS had previously demanded Siddiqui’s release in exchange for murdered American journalist James Foley.)
“Negotiators have contact with this person and are working to come to a safe resolution,” Colleyville Police Sgt. Dara Nelson told reporters, adding that there was “no threat to the general public.”
“I am closely monitoring the unfolding hostage situation at Congregation Beth Israel in Colleyville,” Fort Worth Rep. Marc Veasey tweeted. “I know the Rabbi and his wife Adena very well. I’m praying for his safety and his congregants, and hope that this situation is resolved soon.”
Congregation Beth Israel synagogue, established in 1999, was the first Jewish congregation in Northeast Tarrant County, CNN reports.
The Anti-Defamation League tweeted Saturday, “ADL is aware of the ongoing situation in Colleyville, TX and is engaged with local and federal authorities and the community’s leaders.”
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
'Lady Al Qaeda' the woman Texas synagogue hostage-taker wants freed: She planned chemical attacks on Empire State Building and Brooklyn Bridge and demanded juror at her trial be DNA tested to see if they were Jewish
- The suspect claims his sister is Aafia Siddiqui, a known terrorist who is incarcerated at Carswell Air Force Base near Fort Worth
- Siddiqui was arrested in Afghanistan in 2008 by forces who found her with cyanide and plans to attack the Brooklyn Bridge and Empire State Building
- The Al Qaeda operative dubbed ‘Lady Al Qaeda’ bragged to her student friends at the age of just 21 that she would be proud to be on the FBI’s Most Wanted list
- Siddiqui, who was a biology major at MIT, said in 1993 she wanted to do ‘something to help our Muslim brothers and sisters’ even if it was illegal
- The unknown assailant took the hostages at Congregation Beth Israel in Colleyville during religious services around 11.30am
- Before the livestream cut off, the unknown assailant can be heard saying, 'I'm going to die. Don't cry about me'
PUBLISHED: 16:49 EST, 15 January 2022 | UPDATED: 20:07 EST, 15 January 2022
View comments
The man who stormed a Texas synagogue on the Sabbath and is holding hostages is suspected to be the brother of the notorious 'Lady Al Qaeda,' who is serving 86 years in a federal prison less than 30 miles from the hostage standoff.
The suspect claims his 'sister' is Aafia Siddiqui, a known terrorist who is incarcerated at Carswell Air Force Base near Fort Worth and he is demanding to have her freed, according to a source.
Siddiqui was arrested in Afghanistan in 2008 by local forces who found her with two kilos of poison sodium cyanide and plans for chemical attacks on New York’s Brooklyn Bridge and the Empire State Building.
The Pakistani-born neuroscientist had bragged to her student friends at the age of just 21 that she would be proud to be on the FBI’s Most Wanted list.
She is serving an 86-year sentence at the Federal Medical Center, Carswell in Fort Worth, about 25 miles from the hostage site at the Texas temple.
During her trial, Aafia demanded that every jury member get DNA tested to see if they were Jewish.
+3
Two handout photos of terror suspect Aafia Siddiqui released by the FBI in May of 2004
+3
She was arrested in Afghanistan in 2008 by local forces who found her with two kilos of poison sodium cyanide and plans for chemical attacks on New York’s Brooklyn Bridge and the Empire State Building
Siddiqui, who was a biology major at MIT, said in 1993 that she wanted to do ‘something to help our Muslim brothers and sisters’ even if it meant breaking the law.
She jumped to her feet and ‘raised her skinny little wrists in the air’ in a display of defiance that shocked her friends.
An in-depth account of her journey to infamy also reveals that she took a National Rifle Association shooting class and persuaded other Muslims to learn how to fire a gun.
Siddiqui lied to her husband and after they wed over the phone he was stunned to discover she was just marrying him for his family’s connections to better enable her to wage jihad.
Siddiqui, a mother-of-three, eventually got her twisted wish and became the most wanted woman in the world by the FBI.
She was handed to the Americans and convicted of attempted murder in a U.S. court in 2010.
But her hatred for the U.S. was so strong that during her interrogation she grabbed a rifle from one of her guards and shot at them shouting: ‘Death to Americans’.
A 2014 Boston Globe profile of Siddiqui’s time in Boston sought to answer what happened during her 11 years as a student in the U.S.
Something happened to radicalize an intelligent and devout woman who not only graduated from MIT but also got a doctorate in neuroscience from Brandeis University.
Siddiqui was sent by her neurosurgeon father from Pakistan to study in the U.S. on her own and won a partial scholarship to study at MIT in Cambridge, MA.
She arrived there in 1991 having been living with her brother in Texas, for a year where she studied at the University of Houston and gave regular speeches on Islam.
+3
Aafia Siddiqui, the Al Qaeda operative dubbed ‘Lady Al Qaeda’, bragged to her student friends at the age of just 21 that she would be proud to be on the FBI’s Most Wanted list
During one she told the crowd: ‘The hijab is not a restriction. It allows a woman to be judged by her content, not by her packaging, by what is written on the pages, not the pretty artwork on the cover’
At MIT she made few friends and was remembered as intelligent, driven and a regular at the Prospect Street mosque, which would later be attended by alleged Boston Marathon bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev.
She wore long sleeves and the hijab and was seen as ‘very sweet’ for a former roommate at her all-female dorm.
The focus of her life was the Muslim Student Association but things appear to have changed with the start of the Bosnian War, which seems to have been the beginning of her radicalization.
Siddiqui became involved with the Al-Kifah Refugee Centre, a Brooklyn-based organisation which is thought to have been Al Qaeda’s focus of operations in the US.
Terrorism expert Evan Kohlmann said: ‘Aafia was from a prominent family with connections and a sympathy for jihad. She was just what they needed.’
In 1993 as she and some friends debated how to raise money for Muslims being killed during the Bosnian War, one of them joked that they didn’t want to go on the FBI’s Most Wanted List.
Waqas Jilani, then a graduate student at Clark University, said: ‘She raised her skinny little wrists in the air and said: ‘I’d be proud to be on the Most Wanted list because it would mean I’m doing something to help our Muslim brothers and sisters’
‘She said we should all be proud to be on that list’.
That same year Siddiqui did a 10-hour NRA shooting course at Braintree Rifle & Pistol Club on her own and urged other Muslims to join her.
Jilani added that Siddiqui said in her speeches that Muslims should ‘get training and go overseas and fight’.
He said: ‘We were all laughing like, ‘Uh-oh, Aafia’s got a gun!’
‘Part of it was because she was such a bad shot, but also because she was always mouthing off about the U.S. and the FBI being so bad and all.’
Siddiqui married Mohammed Amjad Khan, the son of a wealthy Pakistani family, in a ceremony carried out over the phone before he flew to Boston.
But upon arrival he discovered that far from being the quiet religious woman he had been promised, her life was very different.
He said: ‘I discovered that the well-being of our nascent family unit was not her prime goal in life. Instead, it was to gain prominence in Muslim circles.’
Khan described to the Boston Globe how she regularly watched videos of Osama bin Laden, spent weekends at terror training camps in New Hampshire with activists from Al-Kifah and begged him to quit his medical job so he could join her.
In the end he stopped bringing work colleagues home because she would ‘only to talk about them converting to Islam’.
Khan said: ‘Invariably this would lead to unpleasantness, so I decided to keep my work separate....
‘...By now, all her focus had shifted to jihad against America, instead of preaching to Americans so that they all become Muslims and America becomes a Muslim land’.
The breaking point was the September 11 2001 attacks after which Siddiqui, who was by now dressing in all black, insisted they return to Pakistan and got a divorce.
American officials suspect she remarried Ammar Al-Baluchi, the nephew of 9/11 architect Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, though her family deny this.
Siddiqui and her children disappeared in Karachi, Pakistan in 2003 shortly after Mohammed was arrested.
The following year she was named by FBI director Robert Mueller as one of the seven most wanted Al Qaeda operatives, and the only woman.
What happened in Pakistan before her arrest is unclear and even during her U.S. trial judge Richard Berman said he did not know what she was doing.
But even now such is her importance as a symbol of defiance to the West that Islamic State fighters publicly stated they wanted to swap her for James Foley, the American photojournalist they executed earlier this year.
Siddiqui declined to be interviewed when approached by the Boston Globe at the Federal Prison in Fort Worth, Texas, where she is being held.
Now her, brother, who is an architect in Houston, is apparently holding hostages in Colleyville.
The assailant stormed into Congregation Beth Israel during religious services around 11.30am, which were being live-streamed, telling a SWAT team, 'If anyone tries to enter this building, I’m telling you… everyone will die.'
The live-stream cut off shortly before 2pm local time, where the man can be heard saying: 'I'm going to die.'
According to Star-Telegram reporter Jessika Harkay, he was overheard saying: 'I'm going to die, are you listening? I'm going to die doing this alright? Are you listening? I'm going to die. Don't cry about me.'
It is unclear who he was saying this too.
He reportedly also ranted about religion in between saying that he's 'going to die,' as well as made vague references to weapons and ammunition.
It is unknown if there are any injuries or fatalities at this moment.
He reportedly has taken four hostages and has placed bombs around the temple. Among the hostage's is Rabbi Charlie Cytron-Walker, whose condition and location is unknown.
'Lady Al Qaeda,' the woman Texas synagogue hostage-taker wants freed
The man who took the Texas synagogue hostage demanded the freedom of Aafia Siddiqui, a known terrorist who is incarcerated at Carswell Air Force Base.
