Related video: Gunman takes hostages at Texas synagogue
All hostages at the Congregation Beth Israel synagogue are “out alive and safe,” said Texas governor Greg Abbott and police confirmed that the suspect is deceased.
A gunman had taken hostages at a synagogue in Texas and was demanding the release of a convicted murderer known as ‘Lady Al-Qaeda’ from a US prison.
Police in Colleyville, on the outskirts of Fort Worth, were called to the Congregation Beth Israel at 10.41am on Saturday and were still negotiating with the hostage taker more than 11 hours later at 9pm.
Colleyville Police Chief Michael Miller later told the media that the suspect was dead.
“Around 9 pm, the HRT — hostage rescue team — breached the synagogue, they rescued the three hostages, the suspect is deceased,” he said.
According to reports, the gunman was demanding the release of Aafia Siddiqui, an alleged terrorist serving 86 years in a Texas prison for attempting to kill US soldiers in Afghanistan.
The incident began while a service was being live streamed on Facebook, leading remote congregants to hear the attacker apparently negotiating with police on the phone.
“My heart has become stone!” he says at one point, in a clip recorded before the live stream was removed. “I've got hostages and I'm surrounded and I'm going to die. Okay?
“This is the situation, yeah? These are the stakes. You've got hostages in a synagogue. He's asked for a prisoner to be released, and his gonna die, okay?”
An initial report from ABC News suggested that the suspect claiming to be the brother of Aafia Siddiqui, a Pakistani neuroscientist currently serving an 86-year prison sentence in Fort Worth, Texas for attempting to murder a US soldier in Afghanistan.
However, Siddiqui’s lawyer told The Independent that the attacker has no connection to her family, while activists campaigning for her release said her brother had nothing to do with the attack and is currently in Houston, nearly 300 miles away.
