A multinational investigation is underway after a British man allegedly held four people hostage for 10 hours at a synagogue in Texas on Saturday.
The hostage-taker, identified by authorities as 44-year-old Malik Faisal Akram from Lancashire in the UK, held the worshippers at Congregation Beth Israel in Colleyville, outside Fort Worth. A Facebook livestream of the Shabbat service was left running at first, and remote viewers heard him speaking to police.
After hours of tense negotiations with a hostage rescue teams, Akram was shot and killed in a reported firefight with authorities.
Many details about the attack have yet to become clear as an investigation by multiple law enforcement agencies in the US and UK remains ongoing.
The FBI has said it is working to determine Akram’s motive, adding that the bureau believed the man was “singularly focused on one issue” and that it was “not specifically related to the Jewish community”.
A rabbi who was among the four hostages spoke out on Monday and described how he threw a chair at Akram to escape.
