Surveillance video shows the man who rammed a truck into a Michigan synagogue buying $2,250 worth of fireworks days before the attack.
Ayman Mohamad Ghazali made two purchases at a Phantom Fireworks store in Livonia, Michigan, on Tuesday, officials with the retail chain told CBS News. The first purchase was for $1,369.02 at 2 p.m., followed by a second purchase for $881.94 at 2:17 p.m.
Ghazali, 41, bought 20 items total, including a variety of firecrackers, aerial repeaters, and one fountain product, according to Phantom Fireworks.
He told the store staff that the fireworks were for the end of Ramadan, according to the retailer.
The surveillance footage shows Ghazali shopping in the store’s retail showroom but contains no audio.
Phantom Fireworks
The purchases came just days before Ghazali drove a truck through the doors of Temple Israel in West Bloomfield on Thursday afternoon. The FBI said the attack was a “targeted act of violence against the Jewish community.”
Law enforcement sources told CBS News there were mortar-type explosives in the vehicle, which caught fire when it rammed into the building.
Ghazali died in the vehicle after the attack, according to Oakland County Sheriff Michael Bouchard. Security at the synagogue engaged the suspect with gunfire, Bouchard said.
The Department of Homeland Security identified Ghazali as a Lebanese-born U.S. citizen who came to the country legally in May 2011. A source in Michigan’s Lebanese American community told CBS News Ghazali was a resident of Dearborn Heights.
An Israeli airstrike roughly 10 days before the synagogue attack killed Ghazali’s two brothers in Lebanon, a source in the Lebanese American community told CBS News. CBS News learned from a journalist on the ground in Lebanon that the two brothers were members of a Hezbollah rocket unit in southern Lebanon. The source said Ghazali was devastated by the loss and had stopped working, spending time alone at home.
No one other than Ghazali was killed in the attack. The synagogue said 140 students were at the facility on Thursday and that all students, teachers and staff were safe and accounted for.
The FBI is leading the investigation into the attack. Authorities have not identified a motive.
