Hostages Safe, Hostage-Taker Dead, as 11-Hour Long Siege at Synagogue Ends in Colleyville

Worshippers taken hostage at the Congregation Beth Israel Synagogue in Colleyville are safe and an armed man, who violently interrupted Saturday’s Sabbath services, was killed after an 11-hour standoff with law enforcement Saturday.

The services were being live-streamed for those who did not wish to attend in person due to Covid, when a gunman, shouting and threatening congregants with an alleged bomb, entered the synagogue in the Fort Worth suburb of Colleyville. A man’s voice can be heard shouting angrily during the service in the initial feed, which was taken down about 2 p.m. Saturday and then monitored by police. Police evacuated residents from their homes in about a one-mile swath around the synagogue.

“Please pray for Rabbi Charlie and all the congregants at CBI in Colleyville right now. There is a gunman in the synagogue.” wrote Laura Bright Durant on Twitter.

The situation continued into the late afternoon, news reports indicating four adult hostages remained including Rabbi Charlie Cytron-Walker, and then one was released. The Dallas FBI took over negotiations, which Colleyville Police Chief Michael Miller would later credit with saving lives. By evening, the FBI had flown in its elite Hostage Rescue Team from Quantico, Virginia, formed after the deadly Munich massacre.

About 9:30 p.m., Governor Greg Abbott tweeted that hostages were safe and the hostage-taker was dead after people reported hearing a loud bang and gunshots. The investigation will be global.

Law enforcement identified the suspect but declined to name him or give details about how he died. Initial unconfirmed reports claimed the gunman to be the brother of the incarcerated Aafia Siddiqui who has been linked to 9/11 ringleader Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and once on the FBI’s Most Wanted Terrorists list, but law enforcement said they were in contact with her brother and he was not inside the synagogue.

When she was arrested in 2008 in Afghanistan, she was carrying sodium cyanide, and documents describing how to make chemical weapons, dirty bombs, and weaponize Ebola. She also shot at the military interrogators questioning her. The University of Houston, M.I.T. and Brandeis-educated PhD is imprisoned in Fort Worth.