US Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem says authorities investigating whether family knew of planned โheinous attackโ.
Federal officials in the United States have taken into custody the family of a man suspected of attacking a pro-Israel rally in Boulder, Colorado, over the weekend.
In a video on Tuesday, US Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem announced that the family of Egyptian national Mohamed Sabry Soliman had been detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
โThis terrorist will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law,โ Noem said in the video. โWe are investigating to what extent his family knew about this heinous attack, if they had knowledge of it, or if they provided support to it.โ
Police have accused the 45-year-old Soliman of throwing Molotov cocktails into a crowd that had gathered for an event organised by Run for Their Lives, a group calling for the release of Israeli captives held in Gaza.
According to an affidavit, Soliman yelled โFree Palestineโ while hurling the incendiary devices.
The firebombs injured 12 people, three of whom remain hospitalised. Police have said Soliman planned the attack for more than a year. He is facing federal hate crime charges.
โWhen he was interviewed about the attack, he said he wanted them all to die, he had no regrets, and he would go back and do it again,โ J Bishop Grewell, Coloradoโs acting US attorney, said during a news conference Monday.
Soliman said that he acted alone and that nobody else knew of his plans. But officials with the administration of US President Donald Trump said they will investigate whether his wife and five children were aware of the suspectโs intentions.
Administration officials have also highlighted the fact that Soliman, an Egyptian national, was in the US on an expired tourist visa, tying his arrest โ and that of his family โ to a larger push against undocumented immigration.
โThe United States has zero tolerance for foreign visitors who support terrorism,โ White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters on Tuesday.
โUnder the Trump administration, aliens will only be admitted into the United States through the legal process and only if they do not bear hostile attitudes towards our citizens, our culture, our government, our institutions or, most importantly, our founding principles.โ
Solimanโs family includes a wife and five children. The official White House account on the social media platform X indicated that they โcould be deported by tonightโ.
โSix One-Way Tickets for Mohamedโs Wife and Five Kids. Final Boarding Call Coming Soon,โ Tuesdayโs post read.
The attack comes amid rising tensions in the US over Israelโs continued war in Gaza, which United Nations experts and human rights groups haveย compared to a genocide. It also comes less than two weeks after the fatal shooting of two Israeli embassy employees outside a Jewish museum in Washington, DC.
Jewish as well as Muslim and Arab communities have reported sharp upticks in harassment and violence since the war began.
Trump and his allies have used concerns about anti-Semitism as a pretext to push hardline policies on immigration and a crackdown on pro-Palestine activists.
โThis is yet another example of why we must keep our Borders SECURE, and deport Illegal, Anti-American Radicals from our Homeland,โ Trump said in a social media post on Monday.
But the president and his supporters have themselves faced allegations of leaning into anti-Semitic rhetoric. And his administrationโs push to expel foreign nationals has caused alarm among civil liberties groups.
The administration is currently attempting to deport several international students involved in pro-Palestine activity, including a Turkish graduate student named Rumeysa Ozturk.
Her legal team argues that Ozturk appears to have been arrestedย for co-signing an op-ed calling for an end to the war in Gaza. Ozturk was released from immigrant detention in May following a legal challenge, but she continues to face deportation proceedings.
