BOULDER, Colo. (AP) — Eight people calling for the release of Israeli hostages in Gaza were injured at an outdoor mall in Boulder, Colorado, by a man who police say used a makeshift flamethrower and hurled an incendiary device into a crowd. The FBI immediately described the violence as a “targeted terror attack.”
The suspect, identified by the FBI as 45-year-old Mohamed Sabry Soliman, yelled “Free Palestine” during the Sunday attack on the group of demonstrators, said Mark Michalek, the special agent in charge of the FBI’s Denver field office.
Soliman was arrested and taken to the hospital for treatment, but authorities didn’t elaborate on his injuries.
Here is what we know about the attack:
How the attack unfolded
Authorities said the attacker targeted demonstrators with a volunteer group called Run for Their Lives, which organizes run and walk events to call for the immediate release of the Israeli hostages who remain in Gaza since they were captured by militants during the incursion into southern Israel that started the Israel-Hamas war in 2023.
The group had gathered at the Pearl Street pedestrian mall, a four-block area in downtown Boulder frequented by tourists and students.
The Israel-Hamas war has inflamed global tensions and contributed to a spike in antisemitic violence in the United States. A week earlier, two Israeli Embassy staffers were shot to death in Washington by a man who yelled “I did it for Palestine, I did it for Gaza” as he was being led away by police.
Police in Boulder evacuated multiple blocks of the pedestrian mall. The scene shortly after the attack was tense, as law enforcement agents with a police dog walked through the streets looking for threats and instructed the public to stay clear.
The violence occurred four years after 10 people were killed in a shooting rampage at a grocery store in Boulder, about 25 miles (40 kilometers) northwest of Denver. The gunman was sentenced to life in prison for murder after a jury rejected his attempt to avoid prison time by pleading not guilty by reason of insanity.
Several people hospitalized
The people injured in the Pearl Street attack range in age from 52 to 88.
Photos from the scene showed a woman lying on the ground in the fetal position with her hair soaked, and a man helping her and getting water from someone with a water jug.
The injuries authorities found were consistent with reports of people being set on fire, Boulder Police Chief Steve Redfearn said, adding that injuries ranged from serious to minor.
Redfearn told reporters Sunday evening that it was too early to discuss a motive but that witnesses were being interviewed.
“It would be irresponsible for me to speculate on motive this early on,” he said.
The suspect was arrested at the scene
Mohamed Sabry Soliman, 45, was arrested at the scene. No charges were immediately announced, but officials said they expect to hold him “fully accountable.”
Video from the scene showed him shirtless and wearing jeans and holding two clear bottles with a transparent liquid in them while shouting at onlookers.
Another video shows a witness shouting, “He’s right there. He’s throwing Molotov cocktails,” as a police officer with his gun drawn advanced on the suspect.
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.
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Rodriguez reported from San Francisco.
