Michigan synagogue, Virginia university targeted in unnerving day of US violence

(Corrects day of the week to Thursday, not Monday, in paragraph 8)

By Steve Gorman

March 12 (Reuters) – A convicted Islamic State supporter opened fire in a Virginia university classroom, killing one person and injuring two others before he was killed, while in Michigan a Lebanon-born U.S. citizen crashed his truck into a synagogue and its preschool and was shot dead.

The back-to-back outbursts of violence added to rising concerns about the possibility of attacks on U.S. soil amid the tension since U.S. and Israeli forces launched airstrikes on Iran, and Iran responded with its own strikes on Israel and Gulf states with U.S. bases, sparking an intensifying war across the region.

Jewish communities, already facing a surge in antisemitic incidents, have been especially on edge, as have Muslim communities.

In the suburban Detroit township of West Bloomfield, authorities credited quick action by well-trained synagogue security personnel for preventing any loss of life at Temple Israel and its daycare center other than that of the attacker.

One security officer was struck by the man’s vehicle and knocked briefly unconscious, Oakland County Sheriff Michael Bouchard told reporters. All 140 children were safely evacuated from the preschool and accounted for, the synagogue said.

SMOKE AND FIRE

But 30 law enforcement officers were taken to hospital suffering from inhalation of smoke that filled the synagogue from a fire of undetermined origin that erupted when the suspect’s truck plowed into the building, Bouchard said.

“What happens around the world sometimes affects us, so we have to prepare for it,” Bouchard said.

On Thursday night, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security identified the truck’s driver as Ayman Ghazali, a 41-year-old man who was born in Lebanon and became a U.S. citizen in 2016.

Ghazali had been traumatized when an Israeli airstrike on his family’s village in Lebanon about 10 days ago killed two of Ghazali’s brothers and two of their children, CBS News reported as law enforcement investigated Ghazali’s motive.

The FBI said it was leading the investigation of what special agent Jennifer Runyan called a “targeted act of violence against the Jewish community.”

The man crashed his truck through the doors of the synagogue and drove the vehicle down a hallway before a security officer fired at him, according to Bouchard. 

The attacker was killed during the confrontation. Authorities said it was not immediately clear whether he took his own life or was shot dead by security personnel.

VIRGINIA SHOOTING

Separately, the FBI opened a terrorism investigation into an earlier Thursday shooting at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia, that killed one person and injured two others, both U.S. Army personnel, officials said.

All three victims were affiliated with the university, which according to its website has close ties with the military as well as a student body of which nearly a third are service members.

The shooter in that incident also was killed. He died at the hands of a group of Reserve Officer Training Corps students who subdued him, FBI special agent Dominique Evans told reporters hours later.

She said the suspect shouted “Allahu Akbar” – an Arabic phrase meaning “God is great” – before he opened fire.

FBI officials identified the gunman as Mohamed Jalloh, who pleaded guilty in 2016 to federal charges of providing material support to Islamic State, the Syria- and Iraq-based Islamist militant group and long-time foe of Iran, and was released from prison in 2024.

SPIKE IN ANTISEMITIC INCIDENTS

Antisemitic incidents have spiked in recent years in the U.S., with anti-Jewish incidents accounting for nearly two-thirds of 5,300-plus religiously motivated hate crimes since February 2024, according to FBI data. 

“Antisemitism has no place in Michigan and cannot be tolerated,” Michigan’s attorney general Dana Nessel said in a statement. “In moments like these, it’s more important than ever that we come together, stand with our neighbors, confront hate whenever it appears, and build stronger communities.”

U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday said he had been briefed on the Michigan attack, calling it terrible. 

“I want to send our love to the Michigan Jewish community and all of the people in the Detroit area following the attack on the Jewish synagogue earlier today,” he said.

Jewish and Islamic organizations throughout the United States have been operating under heightened security measures since the U.S. and Israel began their attacks on Iran on February 28.

“We’ve been talking for two weeks about the potential, sadly, of this happening. So there was no lack of preparation,” Bouchard said on CNN. “All Jewish facilities in the area are going to have a lot of extra presence around it until we figure this out.”

The U.S. as a whole has been on edge since the start of the war, with security scares at airports in Kansas City and the Washington suburbs, and the arrest of two men accused of igniting homemade bombs at a chaotic anti-Islam protest outside Gracie Mansion in New York City. Police said the two men in the Gracie Mansion incident told them they were inspired by Islamic State.

(Writing and reporting by Steve Gorman in Los Angeles; Additional reporting by Jasper Ward, Helen Coster, Julia Harte, Jonathan Allen and Rich McKay. Editing by Donna Bryson and Stephen Coates)