FBI says Michigan synagogue attack suspect was inspired by Hezbollah
The FBI has confirmed that Ayman Mohamad Ghazali, the suspect in the Michigan synagogue attack, was influenced by Hezbollah, while U.S. Attorney Jerome Gorgon said describing him simply as a “lone wolf” misses the mark. Former counterterrorism analyst Jonathan Schanzer pointed to Ghazali’s family ties, including a brother who was killed while serving as a Hezbollah commander. Schanzer also warned that the terrorism threat remains elevated and said federal agencies must remain alert to the possibility of sleeper cells operating inside the United States.
The man who stabbed Salman Rushdie repeatedly during a public appearance in western New York was convicted Wednesday of trying to carry out a fatwa issued by Iran’s government against the celebrated British author more than three decades ago.
Hadi Matar, 28, is already serving a 25-year prison sentence after a state court convicted him last year of attempted murder in the 2022 knife attack, which left Rushdie blind in one eye and suffering from nerve damage.
A federal jury in Buffalo deliberated for less than two hours Wednesday before finding Matar guilty on all three counts: attempting to provide material support to the Iran-backed Hezbollah terrorist organization, carrying out an act of terrorism that crossed national boundaries, and providing material support to terrorists, Reuters reported.
Matar now faces a possible maximum sentence of life in prison. His sentencing is scheduled for November 3.
Hadi Matar, the man convicted of stabbing author Salman Rushdie, arrives for his sentencing hearing at the Chautauqua County Courthouse in Chautauqua, New York, on May 16, 2025. (Geoff Robins / AFP)
Prosecutors said Matar was motivated by anger over Rushdie’s 1988 novel “The Satanic Verses,” which included a fictionalized depiction of Muhammad that many Muslims regarded as blasphemous.
In 1989, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini issued a fatwa, or religious decree, calling on Muslims worldwide to kill Rushdie. Iran’s government later distanced itself from the edict, but Khomeini’s successor, Ali Khamenei, reaffirmed it in 2017, Reuters reported, citing the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
Prosecutors said Matar, who was born in the U.S. but has Lebanese citizenship, spent more than a year studying the fatwa before attempting to fulfill it. He had also turned to Islam after a visit to the Middle East years before the eventual attack.
On August 12, 2022, Rushdie was speaking at the Chautauqua Institution in Mayville, New York, when Matar rushed onstage and repeatedly stabbed the Indian-born author in the head, neck, torso and left hand.
Salman Rushdie with his Liberatum Cultural Honour award at Liberatum’s 25th anniversary celebration, at Town Hall in King’s Cross, north London, on July 8, 2026, (Jonathan Brady/PA Images via Getty Images)
Matar’s federal trial weighed whether he had committed an act of terrorism by attacking Rushdie.
Although prosecutors acknowledged that Matar never contacted anyone in Hezbollah, they argued that without the fatwa, he never would have been motivated to try to kill Rushdie, The New York Times reported.
Prosecutors presented Matar’s notes to the jury, which referenced “Jihad” and the “need to kill him ASAP,” according to the Times.
Matar’s defense attorney, Nathaniel L. Barone II, argued that his client acted independently and was not being controlled by Hezbollah.
The Chautauqua Institution where Rushdie was attacked on August 12, 2022. (ANGELA WEISS/AFP via Getty Images)
Prosecutors countered by showing evidence of Matar’s devotion to Hezbollah, which included a photo of him wearing a Hezbollah shirt while making a salute, an essay he wrote that praised the terrorist group and a video he created using remarks from a former leader of Hezbollah, the Times reported.
Timothy Lynch, a federal prosecutor, said in his closing statement that Matar “wanted to be forever revered as a Hezbollah martyr,” according to the Times.
People listen as writers gather to read selected works by British author Salman Rushdie, one week after he was stabbed while on stage, during a rally to show solidarity for free expression on Aug. 19, 2022. (TIMOTHY A. CLARY/AFP via Getty Images)
Rushdie, who testified at the trial, has previously described the attack as something that took him back to the “distant past,” when he spent a decade in hiding after the fatwa was issued.
“I saw the man in black running towards me, down the right-hand side of the seating area: black clothes, black face mask – he was coming in hard and low, a squat missile,” Rushdie told “60 Minutes” host Anderson Cooper in April 2024. “I confess, I had sometimes imagined my assassin rising up in some public forum or other and coming for me in this way.”
