(Updated with release of hostages)
by Shelby Tauber and Daphne Psaledakis
COLLEYVILLE, Texas, Jan 16 (Reuters) – A hostage crisis at a synagogue in Colleyville, Texas, where four people were held by a man on Saturday, ended overnight.
All hostages were released on Saturday evening and are safe and sound.
A hostage was released at the end of the afternoon after being held for more than six hours in the synagogue of the congregation of Beth Israel Colleyville, located between the cities of Dallas and Fort Worth, in the State of Texas.
Reporters at the scene said they heard sounds of explosions, possibly stun grenades, and gunfire shortly before Texas Governor Greg Abbott announced an end to the hostage situation. .
“Our prayers have been heard. All hostages are alive and safe,” Greg Abbott wrote on Twitter. No information about the man who had taken them hostage was available.
Law enforcement said they intervened after receiving calls while the church service was livestreamed on Facebook
FBI negotiators quickly established contact with the man, who asked to speak with a woman being held in federal prison.
Before the broadcast of the service was cut, a man could be heard fuming and talking about religion and his sister, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram newspaper reported.
The man repeated that he did not wish to harm anyone and that he believed he was going to die, the newspaper added.
US President Joe Biden was briefed on the situation and Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said on Twitter that he was praying for the safety of the hostages.
A US official familiar with the matter told ABC News that the hostage taker claimed to be the brother of Pakistani scientist Aafia Siddiqui, sentenced to 86 years in prison in 2010 for shooting US soldiers and FBI agents, and that he demanded his release.
Law enforcement has yet to confirm the suspect’s identity, the official added.
Aafia Siddiqui is being held in a federal prison near Fort Worth. His lawyer, Marwa Elbially, told CNN the man was not Aafia Siddiqui’s brother. He called for the release of the hostages, adding that Aafia Siddiqui’s family condemned his “hateful” acts.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), a Muslim advocacy group, condemned the hostage-taking: “This anti-Semitic attack on American Jews gathering in a synagogue is an abject act.” (With Aram Roston, Jonathan Allen, Valerie Volcovici and Andrea Shalal; French version Camille Raynaud)