DETROIT, March 14, 2026 (BSS/AFP) - The man accused of ramming his pickup truck into a synagogue and setting it ablaze in a suburb of Detroit, Michigan, died from a "self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head," an FBI official told reporters Friday.

The suspect, identified as 41-year-old Ayman Mohamad Ghazali, was originally born in Lebanon, and media reports indicate his relatives were killed in Israeli strikes there days ago.

However, Detroit area FBI special agent in charge Jennifer Runyan warned reporters it would be "irresponsible" to "speculate" at this time on the motive for the attack Thursday.

Runyan told a press conference that Ghazali had "no previous criminal history and no registered weapons."

The New York Times reported Friday that on March 5, an Israeli airstrike in Lebanon killed Ghazali's brother Ibrahim and his brother's two young children, along with another brother Qassem.

Runyan added that "the FBI has no indication that this attack was connected to the shooting at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia," on Thursday, which saw one person killed and two others wounded.

Ghazali drove his grey Ford F150 truck into the synagogue and got it stuck in a hallway, where security guards opened fire, causing the vehicle's engine compartment to catch fire, Runyan said.

"At some point during the gunfight, Ghazali suffers a self-inflicted gunshot to the head," she said.

Investigators later found "large quantities of commercial-grade fireworks, and several jugs of flammable liquid we believe to be gasoline," she added.

The attack comes amid heightened security across the United States following the launch nearly two weeks ago of the US-Israeli war on Iran, a conflict that has since broadened to the Middle East.

The Times reported Ghazali attended a memorial for his slain family members in nearby Dearborn, Michigan, along with other grieving family members and mourners, many from the Lebanese village of Machghara.

Ghazali was born in Lebanon, came to Detroit in 2011 on a visa granted to spouses of US citizens, and became a US citizen himself in 2016, according to federal records.

The father of two teenagers divorced his wife, a pharmacist, in 2024, and until recently worked as a waiter, the Times reported.

Dearborn is home to one of the largest Arab American communities in the country, and memorials for those who have lost family in Lebanon to Israeli strikes "have become frequent," Imam Hassan Qazwini told the newspaper.