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What We Know About The Texas Synagogue Terrorist

What We Know About The Texas Synagogue Terrorist

Biden states that 44-year-old British national Malik Faisal Akram committed “an act of terror”

On Saturday, a terrorist took control of a Colleyville, Texas synagogue with the reported hope of exchanging his four hostages for convicted terrorist Aafia Siddiqui’s release from prison. 

The four hostages escaped unharmed, and the hostage-taking terrorist, identified as 44-year-old British national Malik Faisal Akram, is dead.

The Fort Worth Star-Telegram reports:

The FBI on Sunday identified the hostage-taker in the standoff at a Colleyville synagogue as Malik Faisal Akram, a 44-year-old British citizen.

Akram — who could be heard speaking during a livestream that broadcast a portion of the 11-hour standoff — died Saturday night after a hostage rescue team breached the building. The four hostages were unharmed.

Authorities said Saturday that Akram was killed in a shooting but did not answer a question about whether he was shot by law enforcement or if the gunshot was self-inflicted. The man claimed to have explosives, according to statements he made on the livestreamed video. Authorities have said he had a gun.

“This was an act of terror,” President Joe Biden said Sunday. Biden said there were apparently no explosives, despite the threats, the Associated Press reported.

The Huffington Post provides a brief recap of Siddiqui’s terrorist acts and trial.

Siddiqui, a Pakistani neuroscientist and MIT graduate, was accused of having ties to al Qaeda and sentenced to 86 years in 2010 for trying to murder American soldiers in Afghanistan. In 2008, she had grabbed a soldier’s M4 rifle and used it to shoot at another soldier while being pulled in for questioning; during the attack she “exclaimed her intent and desire to kill Americans,” according to the Justice Department. Siddiqui was wounded by gunfire during the incident.

During her trial, Siddiqui expressed hostility toward Jewish people, suggesting at one point that potential jurors undergo genetic testing to confirm they are not Jewish. She is currently imprisoned at a medical facility near Fort Worth.

Colleyville lies between Dallas and Fort Worth in northern Texas.

Knowing all of this, the FBI beclowned itself by claiming that the hostage-taking of Jewish people in an effort to free an anti-Semitic jihadi was “not specifically related to the Jewish community.”

Meanwhile, state and local law enforcement in cities across the nation have stepped up security for synagogues, and numerous officials in the Biden administration are stressing their concern about copycat perpetrators acting against Jewish people and places of worship.

The Fort Worth Star-Telegram reports in a separate article:

An FBI representative is facing criticism Sunday for telling reporters that the focus of the Colleyville hostage-taker was “not specifically related to the Jewish community,” shortly after the crisis resolved on Saturday night after an 11-hour standoff, with all four hostages at Congregation Beth Israel safe and free.

But the Biden administration’s initial response reflected widespread community concern that the targeting of a synagogue during Shabbat services could fuel a recent surge of antisemitism nationwide. “We continue reaching out to Jewish leaders and faith leaders in the Dallas-Fort Worth area as well as nationally, to offer support and check in, and make sure we’re in regular contact,” a White House official said.

. . . . Top administration officials also told Jewish leaders in those calls that they shared the concern that events in Colleyville could inspire “copycat” attacks against Jewish institutions across the United States. Those concerns remain even with the hostage crisis resolved.

“We are monitoring social media traffic,” Mayorkas said. “We have in the past seen incidents of violence be the subject of communications and efforts by those who seek to do us harm, to inspire copycats – but we are not seeing any specific or credible threat at this time.”

According to the BBC, Akram is from the Blackburn area of Lancashire and is thought to have arrived in the United States approximately two weeks ago.

Akram’s family is reportedly “devastated” and claim that Akram had “mental health issues.”

The Washington Post reports:

Akram’s brother Gulbar Akram said Sunday that their family was “devastated.”

“We as a family do not condone any of his actions and would like to sincerely apologize wholeheartedly to all the victims involved in the unfortunate incident,” he posted in a WhatsApp chat that a Blackburn, England, Muslim group later posted to Facebook.

He said he was in a room with U.S. law enforcement officers for hours, “liaising with Faisal, the negotiators, FBI.”

“My brother was suffering from mental health issues,” the post said.

In an interview with The Washington Post, in which he confirmed writing the WhatsApp message, Gulbar Akram said the hostages had not been in danger of losing their lives.

“I was there in the incident room,” he told The Post. “I know my brother wouldn’t hurt the hostages. He didn’t have it in him. I’m not excusing what he did. … Not one of them needed medical attention.”

Gulbar Akram declined to elaborate on his brother’s mental health.

In the post, Gulbar Akram took issue with how police and the news media were portraying the end of the hostage situation, saying the captives had been released before “a firefight” in which his brother was killed.

“There was nothing we could have said to him or done that would have convinced him to surrender,” Gulbar Akram said in the post, which has since been removed from the Blackburn Muslim Community page.

As always, we will provide more information as it becomes available.

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Comments

And Biden will now declare Malik Faisal Akram a white man. Because, statistics and keeping up appearances.

Hey, I know a good place to learn Krav Maga. Which I believe is Hebrew for Contact Combat. Formerly known as IDF hand-to-hand.

https://www.lfjcc.org/about/index.aspx

Ironically, in my opinion, known as the Lawrence Family JCC. God, did I get my ass handed to me by the friendly people at the “family center.”
By girls.

    Colonel Travis in reply to Arminius. | January 16, 2022 at 8:39 pm

    I’m a member of a Krav gym, I will say that trying to disarm a gunman can be extremely difficult and deadly, I’ve determined I’m simply not going to attempt it, unless the person is guaranteed inept. Even low-skilled idiots can kill you quickly.

    It’s good to have as many defensive abilities as you can, though. Be vigilant!

      texansamurai in reply to Colonel Travis. | January 16, 2022 at 9:51 pm

      clear the body, control the weapon, attack–it can be difficult, true, but it is about focus most of all

        Colonel Travis in reply to texansamurai. | January 16, 2022 at 10:24 pm

        With your screen name, I’m guessing you might have skills! If so, I envy you. I’ve trained for a while, I’m confident with situations but gun and knife (especially knife) disarming is something I long ago decided to avoid doing unless the stars are aligned with me or it is my final choice, period.

        These days I go out of my way to avoid conflict. I’m such a nice and patient guy, now that I know how to hurt and kill better than I ever have 🙂

          The most effective and most dangerous fighters are the ones who avoid conflict until they are forced into it.

          I don’t want to be anything other than a gentleman. Forgive me for being a lesser man.

          Steven Brizel in reply to Colonel Travis. | January 17, 2022 at 6:18 am

          The woke left and it’s ideas clearly have infected the FBI .Walking into BBC a synagogue with explosives on your back in a knapsack and threatening violence is deliberate act of terrorism not that of a mentally disturbed individual I don’t buy the argument that the perpetrator was mentally ill

      No argument from me. I studied a variety of arts, including HEMA. I felt ridiculous. One thing I learned from my Filipino knife instructors is you’re going to get cut. Nobody leaves a knife fight without a trip to the hospital

      Even though I’m 70% disabled per the VA, and to be honest on bad days that 30% abled is hard to find, I still practice the drills of Pahlavani wrestlers.

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZQz_Q5WDe8&t=77s

      “Zurkhaneh (tradional iranian sport) in Ispahan – 2018 – full video”

      I find my best defense is looking strong enough so I don’t appear to be a target. Plus having some skills. The last time I got into a fight was 2007. And the most memorable thing, on my part, was the 24 year old girl exclaiming, “Man, (blank) has some skills.” Damn right I do!

      I will treasure that comment to my dying day.

      The thing is, how could I possibly, responsibly, lead anyone into combat if I didn’t have the skills to lead them out of it? I recall reading about the rise of the Samurai class. The Samurai noticed that the nobles who they were about to replace couldn’t even mount their horses.

      I may be 70% disabled, but I can still crawl upon my horse.

      ahad haamoratsim in reply to Colonel Travis. | January 17, 2022 at 2:16 am

      Not to mention that the guy claimed to have explosives.

      It always looks so easy on TV and movie dramas, though, doesn’t it?

      AnAdultInDiapers in reply to Colonel Travis. | January 17, 2022 at 4:19 am

      I think there’s a point at which the danger inherent in tackling an armed man is lower than passively waiting for him to shoot you.

      Once the trigger is pulled there’s no point holding back. Training means you might even succeed.

      In the incident referenced in this article, patience would indeed have been the optimal approach.

        texansamurai in reply to AnAdultInDiapers. | January 17, 2022 at 8:53 am

        agree–with a couple of exceptions–if am alone, have a bit more latitude regards patience as is only my life am risking–however, if assailant threatens/attempts to harm my lady(though she is capable herself) or other innocents(especially children) then either me or the assailant, or both of us, are going to go out right there–in some situations there cannot be any waiting

    Milhouse in reply to Arminius. | January 17, 2022 at 12:59 am

    Krav Maga. Which I believe is Hebrew for Contact Combat.

    You believe correctly. K’rav means “combat”, and maga` means “touch”. In Hebrew adjectives come after the noun they describe.

All righty then. Since my searches for women in the Isreali Defence Forces now lead to porn I won’t be linking to them.

Maybe I’m using the wrong search terms.

So are we going to start seeing “Stop Jewish Hate” signs on people’s lawns? Is NBC going to have a special on it in prime time?
Didn’t think so

Russ from Winterset | January 16, 2022 at 9:48 pm

He’s British? Clearly he’s distressed that Prince Andrew is going to be drawn into the Ghislaine Maxwell case. What other reason would a Muslim have to attack Jews?

While I give kudos to the FBI Hostage Rescue Team, the statement of the FBI SAC is nonsense. The terrorist could have chosen any place to take hostages, but he chose a synagogue. That cannot be explained away.
Anti-Jew hatred is a core tenet of Islam.

    henrybowman in reply to gary fouse. | January 16, 2022 at 10:11 pm

    They just think now that since they have all the power, they’re so great at gaslighting us that they can just phone it in. But the fact that we can’t do anything about it doesn’t mean we’re oblivious to it, especially when it’s so ham-handed.

    Milhouse in reply to gary fouse. | January 17, 2022 at 9:59 am

    That he chose Jews as his attack’s targets shows that he hates Jews; it doesn’t change the fact that his attack’s purpose had nothing to do with Jews. He could have achieved his purpose (or not) just as easily by attacking anyone else.

“We are continuing to work to find motive.”

Ah, once the guy screams “Allahu Akbar,” it’s futile even to try.
That spell is hell on FBI agents, and it’s permanent.

The guy was probably looking for the nearby Baptist Church and just made a mistake.

    kyrrat in reply to Whitewall. | January 16, 2022 at 11:15 pm

    Then he needed to head further into Colleyville. The nearest churches to Beth Israel are Roman Catholic and Coptic Orthodox. 🙂

Akram had “mental health issues.”

This screams FBI conspiracy theory to me. With all of the bad press the FBI has been getting over the last few months they needed a “win” to take the spotlight off the the scandals.

    Milwaukee in reply to Tsquared. | January 16, 2022 at 11:28 pm

    The Federales worked closely with the fellow intent on the Garland Texas shooting, at the .. let’s draw Mohammed contest.

    In fact, weren’t following the shooters until somebody responsible had to waste them?

    Arminius in reply to Tsquared. | January 17, 2022 at 8:44 am

    I could have predicted !) Allahu Akbar 2) attended a Muslim Brotherhood mosque 3) motive a complete f***cking mystery.

    Why, it’s almost like it happened before! 4, bonus points. I bet he was getting life back together after prison.

      Arminius in reply to Arminius. | January 17, 2022 at 8:47 am

      His 3 wives and 4 children are at a complete loss over this. How could this kind of thing happen to such a devout man?

    henrybowman in reply to Tsquared. | January 17, 2022 at 8:00 pm

    I think the FBI would have to be damn good to either entrap a guy who was barely here two weeks, or recruit him over the pond first and have him fly here.

A few questions:

— how did Mr. Akram get to the U.S.?
— who bought his plane ticket to the U.S.?
— who provided ground transport here in the U.S.?
— what money did he have to get around the U.S.?
— where was he living in the U.S., and how did he pay for it?
— was Mr. Akram on a watch list?
— how did Mr. Akram procure his weapon(s)?
— did Mr. Akram have a Texas firearms ID?
— from where did his gun come? Who sold/gave it to him?
— who was Mr. Akram with in the U.S. — each and every person?
— did Mr. Akram have family in the U.S.?

That’ll do for a start.

    Milwaukee in reply to stevewhitemd. | January 16, 2022 at 11:25 pm

    Good list. Excellent, actually.
    But what about his CCF flu vaccine status? The two jabs? Boosted? If jabbed, by whom and when?

    What were his, sorry, the person’s, pronouns?

    Come on man. Enquiring minds want to know.

    Was he born in the UK? If not where, and when did he arrive?

    What was the name of his mosque back home, and what was his imman’s name?

      AnAdultInDiapers in reply to Milwaukee. | January 17, 2022 at 4:24 am

      The British media are doing their utmost to prevent such information being shared.

      His brother has at least said the right things, although I notice he didn’t thank the FBI for curing Akram’s mental health issues.

        Would you? If you had a crazy brother who did something like this and got himself “cured” like that, would you thank them? At most you’d acknowledge that they had no choice and not hold it against them, but to thank them?!

    Subotai Bahadur in reply to stevewhitemd. | January 16, 2022 at 11:43 pm

    I did something similar in a newspaper column I finished writing a couple of hours ago [one of my sidelines]. Add in, Akram has been convicted of crimes in Britain. He would not be allowed in, therefore either he did not fly in, or someone furnished him with false identity papers. Not cheap. He was not rich.

    Second, there is a lot of local intel needed to pull this off. Congregation Beth Israel is even now not widely known in Lancashire. One can assume that there were a number of candidate targets and they were each checked out before one was chosen. Which means one bugger huge amount of logistical and intel backup . . . in this country.

    Subotai Bahadur

      If there’d been all that intel and planning, he wouldn’t have picked a place that was broadcasting to an online congregation, with only four people physically present. More likely he picked a synagogue at random from the phone book., or one that was close to where he was staying.

      Remember all the speculation about the choice of the Pulse nightclub, and then it turned out that the terrorist had chosen it at literally the last minute and had no idea what kind of place it was.

According to our priest, we are a block over from Beth Israel and our Franciscan priest and the Rabbi are friends, additionally the police used our community hall for staging since we supplied warmth and coffee, the FBI Tactical SWAT team got there at 5, gave him 30 mins to negotiate with them, threw a flash bang a little before 6 and their sniper took the terrorist out. Then they went in and got the Rabbi and others.

    Colonel Travis in reply to kyrrat. | January 16, 2022 at 11:05 pm

    So scary, that’s a nice part of town there, too. It can happen anywhere.

      Milwaukee in reply to Colonel Travis. | January 17, 2022 at 12:07 am

      Ah. The old …nice part of town…bit. Excellent, for a target. In the bad part of town the tolerance for this might be lower. I lived in Colorado Springs for a year. Before my arrival a security guard had shot dead an evil deed doer intent on evil at a large megachurch in town. My parish had regular ushers and also had others packing heat. Just in case.

    gonzotx in reply to kyrrat. | January 17, 2022 at 12:06 am

    The “rabbi and others ran out”, FBI didn’t get them

Hey, did I pull the HMS Sheffield trick on you yose guys? Yeah, that was fun. Pull my finger.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Sheffield_(D80)

I love that ship I believe it was her, when her crew was bouncing from one foot to another, broke out into, “Look on the bright side of life.”

This seems to be getting dissappeared

Charlie Brown’s B-17 f/ Franz Stigler encounter Autographed by 2 379th Vets!

Franz Stigler, who just couldn’t gun down a crippled B-17

OwenKellogg-Engineer | January 17, 2022 at 6:12 am

What a great read! It’s not often that one get to see WWII from the Luftwaffe perspective.

The FBI didn’t say the attack wasn’t targeted at Jews. What it said was that the terrorist’s focus was on an issue not related to the Jewish community, and that is true. Freeing a Pakistani terrorist, who attacked US soldiers, from a US prison has nothing to do with the Jews.

    Arminius in reply to Milhouse. | January 17, 2022 at 10:03 am

    “Freeing a Pakistani terrorist, who attacked US soldiers, from a US prison has nothing to do with the Jews.”

    I think otherwise.

    alaskabob in reply to Milhouse. | January 17, 2022 at 6:10 pm

    Then why a synagogue? A symbolic target and it is related to the Jewish community as a whole. Plenty of Baptist and Catholic churches… Saturday? Seventh Day Adventists would do. Splitting the hair too fine there..

      Milhouse in reply to alaskabob. | January 17, 2022 at 7:16 pm

      Again, his choice of target is unrelated to his purpose. Tell me, if you can, what wanting to free a Pakistani terrorist from a US prison has to do with Jews. What possible connection is there?

        Here’s my bet, he thought that “America is run by Jews” and will “protect Jews” at any cost, including releasing a convicted terrorist. Granted, we can’t know this was his own personal thought process, but we can easily extrapolate that from what we do know about antisemitic belief systems, including Islamic ones. This is particularly true in the UK, where Muslims in particular and the general population at large, cannot understand America’s love for and support of Israel. They think the only explanation can be that we are “run” by Jews and “ruled” by Jews and therefore Jews are the most important people, bound to be protected by our government, up to an including releasing a terrorist. It’s all crap, of course, but that is their sincerely held belief. So yeah, he picked a synagogue and Jewish hostages on purpose because he thought that they would be more valued than a convicted terrorist.

        Just making an educated guess here, but we will know more when his rantings are released (many of which were caught on audio and have thus far been suppressed).

          That is word for word correct, going through his and the terrorist he was trying to free’s past claims about Jews they do think America is run by the Jews. He even demanded that a rabbi in New York release the terrorist.

          We reached the point in racial hierarchy where upholding the Dems racial hierarchy matters more to the FBI than recognizing protocols of the elders of Zion style conspiracy theories are anti-Semitic.

I’ll stop now. Man, Nobody needs to know my business. I’ll stick to my history books.

“I don’t think there is sufficient information to know why he targeted that synagogue why he insisted on the release of someone who’s been in prison for over 10 years… why he was using anti-Semitic & anti-Israeli comments.” – Pres Biden.

Yes, Mr Biden, we just can’t imagine why he would have done that, let alone why he might have said nasty things about Jews and about Israel.

But what we really want to know is, will this Presidential Statement give license to social media to cancel anyone who might spread the “misinformation” that perhaps motive is just not such a great mystery here?

Before I start this is not meant as Lenin apologism

However anyone familiar with the Russian Civil War will recognize a vast majority of Muslim anti-semitic beliefs and claims and think you have travelled back in time to Ukraine 1919 and are imbedded with Denikin’s army when hearing modern Muslim anti-Semites discuss Jews (not all Muslims of course I am talking about the ones who are anti-Semitic only).

Even this synagogue attack YES if you believe Jews are in control of the United States then targeting a synagogue would easily be the best way to achieve your goals.

FBI is free to continue thinking protocols of the Elders of Zion types of belief systems are nont anti-Semitic until god willing we get a Republican in office 2024 to clear out corrupt institutions.

    I just typed something similar in response to Milhouse. I think this is the likely explanation. He literally believed that four Jewish lives would be “worth” one convicted terrorist, as if it was a barter system based in kidnapping and terrorism. Of course the U.S. won’t release the convicted terrorist no matter how many Jews are held hostage, but that doesn’t change the fact that these fanatics actually believe it’s a viable method of attaining their goals.

      It is cliché but great minds think alike 🙂

      I agree with everything you said.

      The one thing I would add that both of us missed is we need to avoid letting the FBI take our eyes off it’s horrible behavior by them pointing at Muslims again as they did through the 2000s. They didn’t try to burry the story on behalf of Muslims but on behalf of leftists, This is important because we need to have the real issue with the FBI if we regain some sort of power.

New York Times, Washington Post, AP, Reuters –

MUSLIM ATTACKS TEXAS SYNAGOGUE, TAKES HOSTAGES, FEDS BAFFLED

Never Again

Please stop referring to this toxic specimen as “British”, it isn’t.
A pig that is born in a stable is not a horse, nor can it become one no matter how many rubber stamps on bits of paper it has..