FBI: Man attacks Colorado crowd with firebombs, 6 people injured

New Straits Times

2 days ago

WASHINGTON: Six people were injured on Sunday when a 45-year-old man yelled "Free Palestine" and threw incendiary devices into a crowd in Boulder, Colorado where a demonstration to remember the Israeli hostages who remain in Gaza was taking place, authorities said.
FBI special agent in charge of the Denver Field Office Mark Michalek said there were six victims, aged between 67 and 88 years old, who were transported to hospitals.
"As a result of these preliminary facts, it is clear that this is a targeted act of violence and the FBI is investigating this as an act of terrorism," he said.
Michalek named the suspect as Mohamed Soliman, aged 45. Solimon was hospitalised shortly after the attack and Reuters could not immediately locate contact information for him or his family.
FBI director Kash Patel also described the incident as a "targeted terror attack," and Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser said it appeared to be "a hate crime given the group that was targeted."
Boulder police chief Stephen Redfearn said he did not believe anyone else was involved.
"We're fairly confident we have the lone suspect in custody," he said. "This was a beautiful Sunday afternoon in downtown Boulder on Pearl Street and this act was unacceptable,"
Redfearn said at an earlier press conference. "I ask that you join me in thinking about the victims, the families of those victims, and everyone involved in this tragedy."
The incident comes amid heightened tensions in the United States over Israel's war in Gaza, which has spurred both an increase in antisemitic hate crime as well as moves by conservative supporters of Israel led by President Donald Trump to brand pro-Palestinian protests as antisemitic.
His administration has detained protesters of the war without charge and cut off funding to elite US universities that have permitted such demonstrations.
Brooke Coffman, a 19-year-old at the University of Colorado who witnessed the Boulder incident, said she saw four women lying or sitting on the ground with burns on their legs. One of them appeared to have been badly burned on most of her body and had been wrapped in a flag by someone, she said.
She described seeing a man whom she presumed to be the attacker standing in the courtyard shirtless, holding a glass bottle of clear liquid and shouting.
"Everybody is yelling, 'get water, get water,'" Coffman said.
Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer, a prominent Jewish Democrat, said he was closely monitoring the situation.
"This is horrifying, and this cannot continue. We must stand up to antisemitism." The attack follows last month's arrest of a Chicago-born man in the fatal shooting of two Israeli embassy employees in Washington, DC.
Someone opened fire on a group of people leaving an event hosted by the American Jewish Committee, an advocacy group that fights antisemitism and supports Israel. The shooting fueled polarization in the United States over the war in Gaza between supporters of Israel and pro-Palestinian demonstrators.