Michigan synagogue car-ramming suspect bought $2,000 worth of fireworks before attack

Two days before federal authorities say Ayman Mohamad Ghazali carried out Thursday's antisemitic terror attack at a synagogue outside Detroit, the driver in the car-ramming allegedly walked out of a fireworks store with more than $2,000 worth of explosives. Speaking exclusively with NBC News, Phantom Fireworks said that a person who registered as Ayman Ghazali visited one of the company’s Detroit-area stores at 1:39 p.m. March 10 and spent about 45 minutes inside.

Days later, Ghazali allegedly rammed a pickup into Temple Israel in West Bloomfield Township, setting off a fire at the synagogue where a preschool attended by more than 100 children was in session, officials said. None of the children or staff members were injured. Ghazali, a Dearborn Heights, Michigan, resident, was found dead after the attack.

The FBI on Friday said that Ghazali was "forensically confirmed" as the assailant. Prior, officials said they believed he was the synagogue attacker, but were awaiting forensics as the driver's body was badly burned. Ghazali had no previous criminal history, no registered weapons, and he had never been the subject of an FBI investigation, Jennifer Runyan, the Special Agent in Charge of the Detroit field office, said in a news briefing Friday.

She did not speak on a motive for the attack, but the FBI has previously said it is investigating the incident as a “targeted act of violence against the Jewish community.” Runyan said that the FBI has no indications that the synagogue attack was connected to a deadly shooting Thursday at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia, that officials say was carried out by a man previously convicted of supporting ISIS. Runyan said Ghazali drove a Ford F-150 to Temple Israel shortly before 10 a.m. Thursday and remained in his truck in the parking lot for two hours.

At 12:15 p.m., he rammed the pickup into a door in the southeast corner of the building. He engaged in a gunfight with at least two security officers while his truck was jammed in a hallway. During that gunfight, his car’s engine compartment caught fire.

At some point, Ghazali suffered a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head, Runyan said. In the truck, investigators found “large quantities of commercial grade fireworks and several jugs of flammable liquid we believe to be gasoline, some of which has been consumed in the fire,” Runyan said. Though no one at the temple was injured, 63 law enforcement officers were sent to the hospital because of smoke inhalation after the car caught fire, Oakland County Sheriff Michael Bouchard said Friday.

Ghazali, a U.S. citizen originally from Lebanon, lost several family members in an Israeli airstrike in Lebanon last week, according to local officials in Michigan. The strike killed two of his brothers, who were known to be members of Hezbollah, and his niece and nephew, an official told NBC News.

The FBI is aware of that information and it is part of the investigation, Runyan said. Investigators are looking into Ghazali’s possible ties to suspected members of Hezbollah in Lebanon, according to a source familiar with the matter. He had been questioned several times about these possible contacts upon his return to the U.S.

from overseas, the source said. Dearborn Heights Mayor Mo Baydoun condemned the attack Friday, saying: “We do know that the individual had recently suffered devastating and personal losses overseas due to an Israeli air strike on his family’s home in Lebanon, leaving two children dead. Grief is real, and it’s heartbreaking, but let me be clear, that is not an excuse.” In recent weeks, hundreds of people in Lebanon have been killed and more than 750,000 people displaced amid escalating Israeli attacks, which were launched after Hezbollah struck Israel in retaliation for the war on Iran.

In Michigan, Alan Zoldan, Phantom Fireworks' executive vice president, said the store employee who rang up Ghazali's order recalled that “he certainly had no appearance of nervousness.” “He was going to be celebrating Eid, you know, the end of the Ramadan,” Zoldan said. Eid al-Fitr, a holiday celebrated by Muslims to mark the end of the fast, is next week. Phantom Fireworks said it requires all customers to register their identification before a purchase.

After the synagogue attack, the company found Ghazali’s name and address in its records, which it said federal investigators requested by subpoena. Video Phantom Fireworks shared with NBC News shows the man who identified himself as Ghazali, 41, walking into the store and registering his identification before shopping. About 15 minutes later, he walks to the register with a mostly full cart, fills out paperwork and begins checking out.

Once all the items are scanned and on the counter, he turns the cart around and continues shopping. About 20 minutes later, footage shows the man pushing the cart to a waiting pickup. He loads the truck bed, hands the cart off to the store employee and drives off.

Ghazali bought roughly 20 types of items from Phantom Fireworks, including a “finale rack” product that the company says should be lit with people at least 100 yards away. It’s not clear if fireworks purchased from this store were used in the synagogue attack. The company also said that a $2,000 purchase is not inherently noteworthy.

“For our, you know, biggest customers that are going big at home — which we have so many of — spending $2,000, $5,000, $10,000 happens repeatedly … $5,000 and $10,000 is actually pretty common,” said Phantom Fireworks vice president Jessi Dragoiu. In a news briefing on Friday, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer called the attack an act of antisemitism.

“It was hate, plain and simple,” Whitmer said at the briefing. “We will fight this ancient and rampant evil. We will stand together as we do it, and we will call it out.

We must lower the rhetoric in this state and in this country, especially at this moment where we have seen such a rise in anti-Semitism and more attacks on the Jewish community.” The Oakland County Sheriff’s Office referred NBC News to the FBI. The FBI declined to comment on this story. Jesse Kirsch is a correspondent based in Miami reporting across all NBC News platforms.

Mirna Alsharif is a breaking news reporter for NBC News.