Colleyville police secure the area around Congregation Beth Israel synagogue on Saturday, Jan. 15, 2022 in Colleyville, Texas. Authorities say a man has apparently taken hostages at the synagogue near Fort Worth, Texas. The Colleyville Police Department tweeted Saturday afternoon that it was conducting SWAT operations at the address of Congregation Beth Israel (Jessika Harkay/Star-Telegram via AP)

By Jake Bleiberg, AP

Authorities said a man apparently took hostages Saturday during services at a Texas synagogue where the suspect could be heard ranting angrily in a livestream before the feed cut out.

The Colleyville Police Department tweeted Saturday afternoon that it was conducting SWAT operations at the address of Congregation Beth Israel, northeast of Fort Worth.

At least four hostages were believed to be inside the synagogue, according to two law enforcement officials who were not authorized to discuss the ongoing investigation and who spoke to The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity. The synagogue’s rabbi was believed to be among the hostages, one of the officials said.

Authorities are still trying to discern a precise motive for the attack. The hostage-taker was heard demanding the release of Aafia Siddiqui, a Pakistani neuroscientist suspected of having ties to al-Qaeda, who was convicted of trying to kill U.S. military officers while in custody in Afghanistan, one of the law enforcement officials said. Siddiqui is in federal prison in Texas.

The law enforcement officials said investigators have not positively identified the man and cautioned that the information was based on a preliminary investigation as the situation was still rapidly developing.

FBI Dallas spokeswoman Katie Chaumont said an FBI SWAT team was also at the scene and that crisis negotiators had been communicating with someone inside the synagogue. But she could not say whether the person was armed and she declined to describe what the person had said to authorities, citing operational sensitivity.

Police were first called to the synagogue around 11 a.m. and people were evacuated from the surrounding neighborhood soon after that, Chaumont said.

There have been no reported injuries, Chaumont said.

“It’s an evolving situation, and we have a lot of law enforcement personnel on scene,” Chaumont said.

Law enforcement shut down access to the roads surrounding the synagogue Saturday afternoon.

The services were being livestreamed on the synagogue’s Facebook page for a time. The Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported that an angry man could be heard ranting and talking about religion at times during the livestream, which didn’t show what was happening inside the synagogue.

Shortly before 2 p.m., the man said, “You got to do something. I don’t want to see this guy dead.” Moments later, the feed cut out.

The man, who used profanities, repeatedly mentioned his sister, Islam and that he thought he was going to die, the Star-Telegram reported.

Colleyville, a community of about 26,000 people, is about 15 miles (23 kilometers) northeast of Fort Worth.

Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said he was monitoring the situation closely. “We pray for the safety of the hostages and rescuers,” he wrote on Twitter.

Israel’s consul general in Houston is on her way to the scene of the incident, Foreign Minister Yair Lapid said in a statement, adding that Israeli officials “are in close contact with American law enforcement agencies.”

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50 COMMENTS

  1. If the hostage(s) are armed what’s the situation?

    On a serious note, I hope this is resolved with minimal harm to the innocent.

    • When will people learn?? It’s just stunning! “It won’t happen to me,” they say, until it happens.

      For God’s sake, buy a firearm, learn how to use it, carry it.

  3. “The man, who used profanities, repeatedly mentioned his sister, Islam and that he thought he was going to die,”

    Well I think he’s right about one thing…………..

    • Another hostage situation brought to us by the “religion of peace”©️. The terrorist’s sister is a terrorist herself. Why a synagogue lacks security baffles the mind. Peace out…

      • “Another hostage situation brought to us by the “religion of peace””

        The ‘peace’ sought is complete and total submission to Allah, via Islam…

        • Marwa Elbially, an attorney for Siddiqui, told The Daily Beast the 49-year-old inmate had one message for the hostage taker: “She would tell this individual to immediately release the hostages. She does not condone or accept anything that would lead to harm of any other human being.”

        • @Siddiqui Calling Bullshit. That’s why she is doing 86 years for attempting to Kill U.S. Military personnel. Sounds exactly what a Lawyer would say.

      • There’s a HUGH difference between Jews in Israel who have learned the lessons of Islamic Terrorism and Americanized Jews who generally live under the Democrat Ideology of Firearms Bad.

        • jfkjr,

          WHAT has the Canon Law of the Church always maintained, that is relevant to this thread??? Perhaps you could enlighten us? Because I’m Catholic, and I have no idea what you are referring to or talking about.

      • It was not very long go when the State of Texs changed their laws regarding firearms in churches. If I remember correctly, only a “proffessinal” securtb team could be armed, and no one else. Last I visited (5 years back) anyone could be armed inside a church building, even during meetings. I hope someof the “armed” metnioned in the headline were Good Guys.

      • “It was not very long go when the State of Texs changed their laws regarding firearms in churches.”

        Florida, the same way.

        Of course, being illegal wasn’t a problem for our security team; we had the express permission of the pastor and all of the congregation to tool up… 🙂

  4. I’ll bet he bought that fully automatic weapon of war at a gun show. With a bump stock. And a high capacity magazine. From the NRA. Probably Ghost Gun. With exploding armor-piercing bullets.

    He’s a Muslim? You won’t see this on CNN.

  5. You know what the old saying is gonna be from the FBI, “we had him on our radar but still managed to do this.”

      • if he is the brother of the dirtbag in prison for trying to kill American soldiers, he MUST be on their radar…. but what they were DOING about him is apparently another matter.

        • FBI is too busy rounding up parents at school board meetings and waterboarding people who walked into the Capital without a visitors pass.

  7. This has nothing to to with Islam. It is all perpetrated by “white supremacists” domestic terrorists. Just ask DOJ.

    • That’s right 007! They should immediately Illegally get phone records, Credit Card use, hotel locations without warrants to find millions of dollars in stashed assault weapons in the entire State of TX for ‘proof’ that the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers were launching an insurrection using innocent Islamists as point men to bring down the Marxist Democracy in America.

      Too bad they’ll cap him before he can be arrested and let out on an individual recognizance bond with full hotel and personal necessities paid for 30 days in NY so he can get the right to vote as an American Citizen for Shariah Law.

  9. Her family released a similar statement, denouncing the hostage-taking.

    “We want the hostage-taker to know that Dr. Aafia Siddiqui and her family strongly condemn this act and do not stand by you. This assailant has nothing to do with Dr. Aafia, her family, or the global campaign to get justice for Dr. Aafia. We want the assailant to know that his actions are wicked and directly undermine those of us who are seeking justice for Dr. Aafia,” the statement said.

      • “Code talk for kill the infidels..”

        In Islam, lying is not permitted, they will tell you. And it’s in the Qur’an.

        Just one problem : Except when it in the interest of Islam, against the infidels…

    • N ope. IF it was a “gun freee zone” it was totally and only by the active choice of the organisation/congregation meeting in that location. Texas law allows private citiezns to be armed in all such places. Local “tradition” might not, though….. but I’ll bet they will “reassess” once this situation is over.

      • “IF it was a “gun freee zone” it was totally and only by the active choice of the organisation/congregation meeting in that location.”

        100 percent correct, and it’s the same in Florida churches…

  11. Aafia has received justice with mercy. She is allowed to live. If her fascists brother is seeking justice he must want her stoned for divorcing her first husband?

    Taking hostages in a synagogue is racially motivated. Over 50% of religious motivated violence has been against Jews. The majority of Jews in America lean towards the left but are victimized by others the left embraces.

    So it must be Trumps restrictions on illegal immigration and the far right ideology that caused an Islamic leftist to take Jew hostage?

    • Former,

      Thank you for your service. You nailed it – the Leftist/fascists (yeah, dacian the stupid, I’m lookin’ at YOU!) can see a “microaggression” in a heartbeat, recite their “pronouns” every time they open their stupid mouths, but are oblivious to the obvious.

      NO, all Muslims are not bad, or evil, or even misguided. But the FACT is that the VAST majority of the acts of terrorism currently occurring in our world are a direct and provable result of (i) Islamic extremism, and/or (ii) Leftist/fascists.

      We need to fight the CORRECT war, the right way. If only we still had a military that was more concerned about that than about whether they had tampon dispensers in the men’s bathrooms on all our bases.

  12. Siddiqui has held antisemitic views, dismissing a legal defense team on the grounds that the lawyers were Jewish and claiming the case against her was a Jewish conspiracy, according to The Guardian. She insisted that jurors be DNA tested to ensure they were neither “Zionist” nor “Israeli,” The Times reported.
    According to Scroggins, Siddiqui wrote a letter to then-President Barack Obama reading, “Study the history of the Jews. They have always back-stabbed everyone who has taken pity on them and made the ‘fatal’ error of giving them shelter…. and it is this cruel, ungrateful back-stabbing of the Jews that has caused them to be mercilessly expelled from wherever they gain strength. This why ‘holocausts’ keep happening to them repeatedly! If they would only learn to be grateful and change their behavior!! …” Scroggins added that Siddiqui later claimed she was not against all “Israeli Americans.”

      • Hey, nameless, brainless troll, I see you aren’t even a tad bit brighter than you were before. First of all, you nit, those are all FACTS, widely reported (even in the useless “mainstream” media), and second, why the hell should anyone do your research for you, that you could do in two minutes (if you weren’t an incompetent moron)???

  14. It’s been confirmed that the suspect took and passed the room temperature challenge. Somebody’s swat team went, the police spokesman said HRT so not sure if it was FBI or local.

  17. American Jews in general will never learn. Very sad. They are more like Democrats than they are people of the old Testament.

    • Chris T,

      To be honest, that’s a complicated subject. I agree with you, but the origins are deep. BECAUSE the Jews have been on everyone’s list of “who do I persecute, first?” since Cain slew Abel, their is an inherent sensitivity to the suffering of other groups. Jews were a mainstay of the U.S. civil rights movement. When the Jews repopulated Eretz Yisrael, they were primarily socialists (thank God they got over THAT delusion!). American Jews, not having had the experience of being surrounded by millions of Muslims whose sole goal was to kill you, they retain that mindset. Israeli Jews came up against the real world, and learned better.

      Given how American Jews are being treated by the American Leftist/fascists, I suspect that is changing . . . too slowly, perhaps, but it’s changing. Check out the available numbers on donations to the DNC (not much, but what there is is interesting).

  18. You report: “Authorities are still trying to discern a precise motive for the attack.” The motive for the attack is blindingly obvious. The guy is, or was, a Jihadi fanatic who wanted to get a fellow Jihadi fanatic out of jail nearby. Jihadi fanatics are Jew-haters and so they naturally take their terror to a synagogue. What in the thick heads of our “authorities” makes it so difficult for them to figure this out?

  19. C’mon guys and gals.

    The first sentence of the “report” says “apparently took hostages”. WTF?

    Nah, he didn’t take hostages—he was just upset about the d’var (sermon). 😏

  20. Hmm- a couple of observations. 1) who paid for his travel, someone obviously did since there is an established international nexus with the two arrested in Europe. 2) did the locals call the HRT in and if so why. The fact that they showed up indicates someone knew early on that this incident did indeed have a terrorist connection. They don’t just show up. 3) What were the weapon(s) he had, where did he get them – in spite of the comments from slow joe not just anyone can LEGALLY buy a gun in wild west Texas. That is particularly true for foreigners.

    I’m gonna take a swag and speculate that there is a whole lot more to this tale than we will ever be allowed to know.

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