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Six people were injured Sunday in what the FBI immediately described as a “targeted terror attack” at an outdoor mall in Boulder, Colorado, where a group had gathered to raise attention to Israeli hostages held in Gaza.
The suspect, identified as 45-year-old Mohamed Sabry Soliman, yelled “Free Palestine” and used a makeshift flamethrower in the attack, said Mark Michalek, the special agent in charge of the Denver field office. Soliman was taken into custody.
No charges were immediately announced but officials said they expect to hold him “fully accountable.”
Soliman was also injured and was taken to the hospital to be treated, but authorities didn’t elaborate on the nature of his injuries.
Video from the scene showed a witness shouting, “He’s right there. He’s throwing Molotov cocktails,” as a police officer with his gun drawn advanced on a bare-chested suspect with containers in each hand.
The attack took place at the popular Pearl Street pedestrian mall, a four-block area in downtown Boulder, where demonstrators with a volunteer group called Run For Their Lives had gathered to raise visibility for the hostages who remain in Gaza as a war between Israel and Hamas continues to inflame global tensions and has contributed to a spike in antisemitic violence in the United States. It occurred more than a week after the fatal shooting of two Israeli embassy staffers in Washington by a Chicago man who yelled “I did it for Palestine, I did it for Gaza” as he was being led away by police.
FBI leaders in Washington said they were treating the Boulder attack as an act of terrorism, and the Justice Department — which leads investigations into acts of violence driven by religious, racial or ethnic motivations — decried the attack as a “needless act of violence, which follows recent attacks against Jewish Americans.”
“This act of terror is being investigated as an act of ideologically motivated violence based on the early information, the evidence, and witness accounts. We will speak clearly on these incidents when the facts warrant it,” FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino said in a post on X.
