Hostage-taking in Texas | Two arrested in UK

(Colleyville) US authorities on Sunday launched an “international scope” investigation into the Briton who died the day before after holding several people hostage for ten hours in a Texas synagogue, an “act of terrorism” denounced by Joe Biden and the UK.

The President of the United States confirmed that the suspect, identified by the FBI as British national Malik Faisal Akram, 44, had “insisted on obtaining the release of someone who has been in prison for ten years”, and had “made anti-Semitic and anti-Israel comments.”

According to several American media, he demanded the release of Aafia Siddiqui, a Pakistani scientist sentenced in 2010 by a federal court in New York to 86 years in prison for having tried to shoot American soldiers while she was detained in Afghanistan.

“It was an act of terrorism”, hammered Joe Biden.

The United Kingdom also condemned, through its Foreign Minister Liz Truss, “this act of terrorism and anti-Semitism”, ensuring that it was “alongside the United States”.

British counter-terror police have announced that they have arrested two young people in connection with the hostage-taking in south Manchester on Sunday evening. “They remain in custody for questioning,” Greater Manchester Police said in a statement.

The American president explained that the hostage taker had bought his weapons “on the street”. And he revealed that he “apparently had no bombs” contrary to what he had claimed during the events.

Hostages safe and sound

The four hostages were all released from the Congregation Beth Israel synagogue in Colleyville, a town of about 23,000 people about 40 miles from Dallas safe and sound on Saturday evening.

Among them was a respected local rabbi, Charlie Cytron-Walker, who said that “the gunman had become increasingly aggressive and threatening in the final hour of the hostage crisis.”

It ended with a police assault and the death of the kidnapper – it is not known at this stage whether he committed suicide or was shot dead by the police.

North West England Counter Terrorism Police confirmed in a statement that Malik Faisal Akram is from the Blackburn area of ​​Lancashire.

On the Blackburn Muslim Community Facebook page, a man identifying as his brother said he “suffered from mental health issues” and was “shot and killed”. “There was nothing we could have said to him or done that would have convinced him to surrender,” said the man who says he was “until the early morning in liaison with Faisal, the negotiators, the FBI” .

“We will investigate the hostage taker and his contacts,” in an “international scope” investigation, Dallas FBI Special Agent Matt DeSarno said.

Adding to the spectacularity of the hostage situation, a Facebook live broadcast of the church service was in progress when the suspect burst in.

” I will die ”

“There is something wrong with America”, launched this man, according to this broadcast followed by AFP before its interruption.

“I’m going to die,” he also said, repeatedly asking an unidentified caller that “his sister” be on the phone to him.

Aafia Siddiqui is currently being held in a prison hospital in Fort Worth, near Dallas.

She was the first woman to be suspected by the United States of links with Al-Qaeda, the Islamist network responsible for the attacks of September 11, 2001 in New York and against the Pentagon, which had earned her the nickname “Lady Al -Qaeda”.

She “is absolutely not involved” in the hostage-taking, however, assured CNN in a statement to her lawyer. She confirmed that the man was not her client’s brother.

Experts pointed out that the word used by the man in Arabic was figurative and meant “sister” in the Islamic faith.

President Biden has pledged to “confront anti-Semitism”. Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett also felt that it was necessary “to continue to fight it throughout the world”.