Eight hurt in Boulder mall as suspect shouts ‘free Palestine’

Several people were injured after a man glaring “free Palestine” launched Molotov cocktails during a gathering in support of Israeli hostages in Colorado, the authorities announced.

The police said that eight people – aged 52 to 88 – were injured in the attack at the Pearl Street Mall, a popular outdoor space in Boulder, about 30 miles (48 km) from Denver.

The FBI called this a suspected terrorist attack and said the suspect had used a makeshift flame launcher, Molotov cocktails and other incendiary devices.

Images of the attack show the suspect, who was shirtless, shouting to the group and had what seems to be Molotov cocktails in each hand during his arrest.

The attack took place during a weekly demonstration planned by Run For There Lives, a pro-Israeli group which holds walks in the outdoor pedestrian shopping center with Israeli hostages in Gaza.

Police received calls around 1:26 p.m. Local time (20:26 BST) about a man with a weapon and people burnt down, said Boulder police chief Stephen Redfearn at a press conference.

The agents who responded found several people injured, including those with burns.

Witnesses told the authorities that the suspect had used a “makeshift flame launcher and threw an incendiary device in the crowd,” said Mark Michalek, who heads the FBI Denver office.

Redfearn added that these devices included Molotov cocktails thrown into the crowd.

Michalek identified the suspect as Mohamed Sabry Soliman, 45.

Soliman is an Egyptian national, government representatives told the American partner of the BBC CBS News.

In 2022, Soliman arrived in California on a non-immigrant visa that expired in February 2023, several sources told CBS News. He lived in Colorado Springs.

Images that seemed to come from the attack showed a chaotic scene: the smoke filling the air, the people who run in several directions, the stains of grass on fire and the people injured on the ground.

Warning: This story contains details that some readers can find painful.

In images and videos published online, but not yet verified by the BBC, a man seeming to be the suspect is seen without a shirt and holding bottles of liquid with a piece of red fabric inside. We can hear screaming on the crowd and seems to advance on them while some rush to flee.

As he shouts, a woman is on the ground and seems injured. People surround him and a man pours water over his body.

Images show that the police rush to the scene and arrest the suspect. Police said he was taken to hospital with injuries.

“It is clear that this is an act of targeted violence and the FBI investigates this as an act of terrorism,” said Michalek. “Unfortunately, attacks like this become too common across the country.”

The attack is the second act of violence very publicized in the United States in the last two weeks concerning the conflict in Gaza.

A man who shouted “free Palestine” Mortally killed two Israeli embassy employees Outside a Jewish museum in Washington DC on May 22. The incident occurred during a networking event organized by a Jewish organization.

The prosecutor general of Colorado, Phil Weiser, said that the officials know that the attack “seems to be the crime of hatred given the group which was targeted”.

“People can have different opinions on global events and the Israeli-Hamas conflict, but violence is never the response to regulation differences,” Weiser said in a statement on Sunday. “Hatred has no place in Colorado.”

The Israeli Foreign Affairs Minister Gideon Sa’ar said he was “shocked” by the incident and called the “pure anti -Semitism” attack.

“Shocked by the terrible anti-Semitic terrorist attack targeting the Jews in Boulder, Colorado,” he wrote on X. “It is pure anti-Semitism, fueled by blood defamations in the media.”

Danny Danon, Israel’s ambassador to the UN, was also saddened by the attack, the appellant “terrorism” and asking for “concrete action” in response.

In an article on X, the ambassador said the Jewish demonstrators had been brutally attacked. “

“Terrorism against the Jews does not stop at the Gaza border-it is already burning the streets of America,” he said.