The FBI has identified the suspect who attacked a pro-Israel rally in Boulder, Colorado as Egyptian native Mohamed Sabry Soliman.
The 45-year-old had been granted a visa and a work permit under the Biden administration – both of which he overstayed, federal officials confirmed Sunday night.
‘The Biden Admin granted the alien a visa and then, when he illegally overstayed, they gave him a work permit,’ White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller wrote on X, later calling Soliman an ‘illegal alien.’
‘Immigration security is national security,’ he continued. ‘No more hostile migration. Keep them out and send them back.’
Congressman Brandon Gill, of Texas, also claimed that the Biden administration allowed Soliman to enter the United States on the B1/B2 visa program.
‘He overstayed his visa so Biden awarded him with a work permit,’ Gill wrote.
‘He then overstayed his work permit, before brutally attacking American Jews.’
Six people aged between 67 and 88 were injured Sunday afternoon when Solimon allegedly firebombed the pro-Israel demonstration, which was organized to remember the October 7 victims who are still being held hostage by Hamas militants in Gaza.
One of the victims was in critical condition, while other victims’ injuries ranged from serious to minor, Colorado Newsline reports.
Two of the victims also had to be airlifted to a burn unit in Aurora.
At least one of the victims was a Holocaust survivor, according to the New York Times.
Boulder Police said the horror unfolded during the event, organized by Run For Their Lives, on Pearl Street Mall in the city’s downtown at around 1.26pm on Sunday, the first day of a Jewish holiday called Shavuot.
Shocking videos posted online showed Soliman appearing to taunt the victims while brandishing bottles of alcohol for the Molotov cocktails in each hand as smoke rose from the scene.
Wearing only jeans and sunglasses, he yelled: ‘End Zionists… they are terrorists’ and ‘free Palestine’. He also said: ‘How many children have you killed?’ according to the ADL Center on Extremism.
EMTs used stretchers to move people into ambulances while flames spread in patches across the ground. Blackened burned-out bottles littered the scene.
Another video showed what looked like a burn scar across the ground close to the city’s old courthouse.
FBI Director Kash Patel has called the incident a ‘terror attack’ while Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser said it ‘appears to be a hate crime given the group that was targeted’.
Boulder Police Chief Steve Redfearn told a press conference that victims suffered ‘injuries consistent with burns, and other injuries’ and that wounds ranged from ‘minor’ to ‘potentially life-threatening’.
Law enforcement told NBC just before 8pm that one person was in a critical condition.
Mark Michalek, the special agent in charge of the FBI’s Denver field office, told another press conference later on Sunday that witnesses said Soliman used ‘a makeshift flamethrower and threw an incendiary device into the crowd’.
He noted there was nothing tying Soliman to a larger terror network and it is believed he acted alone, but the FBI will continue to investigate.
Soliman was taken into custody ‘without incident,’ Chief Redfearn said.
Soliman, who was wearing sunglasses and jeans with no shirt when he was detained, was also taken to the hospital with ‘minor injuries’.
Chief Redfearn did not disclose the motivation behind the attack. ‘It would be irresponsible for me to speculate on motive this early on,’ he said.
Boulder Police were also initially split with the FBI on whether to call the incident a terror attack, with Redfearn saying it was too early to define the incident.
Yet Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser said the attack ‘appears to be a hate crime given the group that was targeted.
‘People may have differing views about world events and the Israeli-Hamas conflict, but violence is never the answer to settling differences,’ he added.
‘Hate has no place in Colorado. We all have the right to peaceably assemble and the freedom to speak our views.
‘But these violent acts—which are becoming more frequent, brazen and closer to home—must stop and those who commit these horrific acts must be fully held to account.’
Weiser added that his ‘thoughts are with those injured and impacted by today’s attack against a group that meets weekly on Boulder’s Pearl Street Mall to call for the release of the hostages in Gaza.’
FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino also called the incident ‘an act of terror and targeted violence’.
‘All of the necessary assets will be dedicated to this investigation. If you have any investigative tips please contact the FBI. And if you aided or abetted this attack, we will find you. You cannot hide,’ he wrote on X.
Meanwhile, Colorado Gov. Jared Polis said in a statement that he was ‘closely monitoring’ the situation, adding that ‘hate-filled acts of any kind are unacceptable.’
Boulder County District Attorney Michael Dougherty noted that Soliman will now be charged in the coming days.
‘There’s a couple different options, but what I would stress now, most importantly, is we are fully united 100% in making sure the charges we bring hold the attacker fully accountable,’ he said at a news conference.
The Boulder attack occurred as law enforcement authorities in the US grapple with a sharp spike in antisemitic violence.
It comes just over a week after a man was arrested over the fatal shooting of two Israeli embassy staffers in Washington, DC on May 22.
The victims were identified as German-Israeli dual national Yaron Lischinsky, 30, and his girlfriend Sarah Milgrim, 26.
Lischinsky had been planning to propose to Milgrim after buying a ring.
The suspect, 30-year-old Elias Rodriguez, repeatedly shouted ‘Free Palestine’ after shooting them dead, as police dragged him away.
Jewish human rights organization the Simon Wiesenthal Center said the Boulder attack came on the eve of a religious holiday.
‘On the eve of Shavuot, a sacred celebration of Jewish identity and tradition, we are forced yet again to confront a horrifying reality: Being Jewish, supporting Israel, or simply gathering as a community now makes American Jews a target,’ the center’s CEO Jim Berk said.
‘This afternoon in Boulder, Colorado, a man threw a Molotov cocktail into a peaceful solidarity walk calling for the release of 58 hostages still held by Hamas, a humanitarian cause that should unite, not divide.’
He blamed the attack, as well as the murders of the Israeli embassy staffers, on ‘months of anti-Israel propaganda, moral equivocation, and silence in the face of raging antisemitism’.
‘The nonstop demonization of Israel and Zionism on our campuses, in our streets, and across digital platforms has created a climate where hate flourishes, and physical attacks—even murder—of Jews is inevitable,’ Berk said.
This is a breaking news story and will be updated.