Home International Texas hostage-taker named as British citizen, 2 arrested

Texas hostage-taker named as British citizen, 2 arrested

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Texas hostage-taker named as British citizen, 2 arrested

TEXAS: The person who held 4 folks hostage at a Texas synagogue was once known via US government as a British citizen Sunday, whilst UK police later arrested two teenagers over an assault that President Joe Biden known as an “act of terror.”

The captor, who died within the 10-hour siege within the small the city of Colleyville on Saturday, was once named via the FBI as 44-year-old Malik Faisal Akram. Hours later, Britain’s counter-terrorism police arrested two folks and have been wondering them in reference to the incident.

“Two youngsters have been detained in South Manchester this night time. They continue to be in custody,” the Higher Manchester Police mentioned in a remark. The FBI’s box place of job in Dallas had previous mentioned there was once “no indication” that any one else was once concerned within the assault at the Congregation Beth Israel synagogue.

The 4 hostages — together with a revered native rabbi, Charlie Cytron-Walker — have been all freed unhurt Saturday night time, prompting aid in the USA, the place the Jewish group and Biden renewed calls to struggle anti-Semitism. “There’s no query that this was once a nerve-racking enjoy,” Cytron-Walker mentioned in a remark Sunday.

“We’re resilient and we can get well,” he added. A person figuring out himself as Akram’s brother Gulbar mentioned in a Fb submit that the suspect had suffered from psychological well being issues. “We wish to say that we as a circle of relatives don’t condone any of his movements and wish to sincerely say sorry wholeheartedly to the entire sufferers concerned within the unlucky incident,” Gulbar mentioned within the submit to a Muslim group Fb web page in Blackburn, in northwest England — the place British police mentioned Akram was once from.

Biden declined to take a position at the cause however perceived to verify stories that the hostage-taker was once searching for the discharge of convicted terrorist Aafia Siddiqui, a Pakistani neuroscientist referred to as “Woman Al-Qaeda.” “This was once an act of terror” dedicated via an assailant who it appears “insisted at the unencumber of somebody who’s been in jail for over 10 years,” Biden advised newshounds right through a discuss with to a starvation aid group in Philadelphia.

Britain’s international minister Liz Truss likewise Sunday condemned the hostage-taking as an “act of terrorism and anti-Semitism.” Siddiqui, the primary girl to be suspected via the USA of hyperlinks to Al-Qaeda and a motive celebre in Pakistan and in South Asian jihadist circles, was once detained in Afghanistan in 2008.

Two years later she was once sentenced via a New York courtroom to 86 years in jail for the tried homicide of US officials in Afghanistan. She is being held at a jail in Castle Price, Texas — about 20 miles (32 kilometers) from the synagogue which Akram attacked. Siddiqui’s legal professional has mentioned she “has completely no involvement” within the hostage scenario and condemned it. – AFP

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