Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) told Fox News on Saturday evening that the hostage situation that unfolded on Saturday afternoon at a synagogue in Texas was part of a “perfect storm brewing” and that it was a “religious war.”
Graham’s remarks come after a man took several hostages at Congregation Beth Israel synagogue in Colleyville and demanded the release of a convicted Islamic terrorist who he claimed was his sister.
“This is a religious war,” Graham told Fox News host Judge Jeanine Pirro. “What did I say on your show when we withdrew from Afghanistan? That this is a perfect storm brewing. The rise in terrorism by the Taliban taking back over; al Qaeda roams freely in Afghanistan. ISIS is alive and well over there, and the border is broken — it’s just a matter of time before terrorists over there come through our border and kill a bunch of Americans. I don’t know about the fact pattern here, but also this week, the Ayatollah’s people, the people around him, released a video indicating a desire to kill President Trump on a golf course. … And the Biden administration hasn’t done a damn thing.”
The hostages were later all freed after a hostage rescue team breached the area where they were being held and the suspect was killed. There is no official word on whether the suspect killed himself or whether law enforcement killed him.
The FBI claimed that “the hostage taker was specifically focused on an issue not directly connected to the Jewish community and there was no immediate indication that the man had was part of any broader plan,” the Associated Press reported.
President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris released separate statements on the matter, saying that there was “more” to learn about the motives of the suspect.
The suspect claimed to be the brother of convicted terrorist Aafia Siddiqui, who is currently serving an 86-year prison sentence in the U.S. for trying to kill American forces in Afghanistan. However, it appears that the suspect was not the brother of Siddiqui.
Aafia Siddiqui is “linked to al Qaeda and was convicted in 2010 of attempting to kill Americans in Afghanistan,” Foreign Policy reported. “Siddiqui … who’s known in counterterrorism circles as ‘Lady al Qaeda,’ has been linked to 9/11 ringleader Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and was once on the FBI’s most-wanted terrorists list. Educated in the United States — she studied at M.I.T. and received a doctorate from Brandeis — Siddiqui was arrested in 2008 in Afghanistan carrying sodium cyanide, as well as documents describing how to make chemical weapons and dirty bombs and how to weaponize Ebola. When FBI and military officials tried to question Siddiqui, she grabbed a weapon left on the table in her interrogation room and fired upon them.”
The Colleyville Police Department said last night that FBI bomb techs were “going to be disposing of some ordinances on the scene at Congregation Beth Israel” and that it was “now safe for residents who were evacuated to return to their residences.”