(Ken Silva, Headline USA) A man with a rifle who crashed into a large Michigan synagogue in what federal officials are saying was a terrorist attack had been on the FBI’s radar for years, according to the New York Post.
Ayman Mohamad Ghazali, 41, was born in Lebanon and naturalized as a U.S. citizen in 2015. He was killed by security after ramming into Temple Israel in West Bloomfield Township near Detroit and driving down a hallway in a vehicle that then caught fire.
The Post reported Friday that Ghazali had been on law enforcement’s radar at least since 2019.
🚨TERROR🚨
The Islamic terrorist that attempted to murder Jewish children was on the FBI’s radar and his brothers were apart of Hezbollah. pic.twitter.com/Mo86kfgG80
— Breanna Morello (@BreannaMorello) March 14, 2026
“At some point that year, Ghazali, who had been known to travel to Lebanon, was questioned by authorities in Atlanta, Ga., after coming back from an overseas trip,” the Post reported, citing anonymous sources.
“He told officials he had gone overseas for the hair transplant, sources said. But he also had contacts on his phone of known Hezbollah members, sources said. The FBI followed up on situation, but it’s unclear what the outcome was,” the Post added.
Ghazali also had brothers in the Iran backed paramilitary group, Hezbollah, according to the Post. Those brothers, Kassim and Ibrahim Ghazali, were killed—along with his niece and nephew—by an Israeli airstrike in Lebanon on March 5, just after sunset as they were having their fast-breaking meal during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. Ibrahim Ghazali’s wife was also seriously wounded and remains in the hospital.
Ghazali’s attack came the same day as another apparent terrorist, Mohamed Bailor Jalloh, committed a shooting at Old Dominion University—killing Lt. Col. Brandon Shah and wounding two others before a heroic cadet subdued and fatally stabbed him. Jalloh had also been on the FBI’s radar, having just got out of jail in late 2024 after serving nearly a decade for attempting to provide material support to ISIS. Jalloh was still on supervised release at the time of his attack.
Additionally, the man who provided Jalloh with his weapon, Kenya Chapman, had been investigated by the ATF in 2021 for buying three guns that later ended up at crime scenes. Instead of punishing him, the ATF gave Chapman a warning and had him write an apology letter.
Chapman now faces charges for providing Jalloh with his weapon.
The guy who provided the Old Dominion shooter his firearm was under ATF investigation for straw purchases.
He once bought weapons for both the victim and the shooter in a homicide case. https://t.co/UFNNKnM8kM pic.twitter.com/3TkRN0MphI— Ken Silva (@JD_Cashless) March 13, 2026
Dozens of terrorists, as well as at least 24 mass shooters, have been on the FBI’s radar before their attacks.
Prominent examples of mass shooters who were on the FBI’s “radar” include Sandy Hook shooter Adam Lanza, Orlando Pulse nightclub shooter Omar Mateen and Parkland shooter Nikolas Cruz.
In Lanza’s case, FBI agents had reportedly previously questioned him for hacking computers.
With Orlando shooter Mateen, the FBI reportedly went as far as investigating him in direct relation to possibly being a terrorist threat—twice. “But the F.B.I. soon ended its examination of Mr. Mateen after finding no evidence that he posed a terrorist threat to his community,” the New York Times reported in June 2016.
Matteen’s father was also an FBI informant for more than a decade, as was reported by NPR in March 2018.
Then, there’s Parkland. In 2018, The New York Times report that “The F.B.I. received a tip last month from someone close to Nikolas Cruz that he owned a gun and had talked of committing a school shooting, the bureau revealed Friday, but it acknowledged that it had failed to investigate.”
Additionally, Buffalo shooter Payton Gendron was possibly communicating with a retired federal agent within as little as 30 minutes of his killing spree. Gendron’s possible links to a retired federal agent are more bizarre when coupled with a July 2019 story from the Buffalo News about FBI agents tracking potential mass shooters in the area.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Ken Silva is the editor of Headline USA. Follow him at x.com/jd_cashless.
