Texas hostage crisis: Pakistani accused shot dead

The slain kidnapper on Saturday had demanded release of a Pakistani neuroscientist who had plotted to kill American soldiers in Afghanistan.

Further details of the Pakistani hostage-taker were not immediately available but he was heard making his demands, before the security forces shot him dead.

According to CNN, the synagogue was livestreaming their Sabbath morning service on Facebook when the hostage situation began.

The live stream had also captured audio of a man saying: "You get my sister on the phone" and "I am gonna die", the BBC reported.
"There's something wrong with America," he further said.

The feed was later taken down.

CNN quoted two law enforcement officers as saying that the investigators believed the hostage-taker's motive was freeing his sister Aafia Siddique, a Pakistani woman allegedly having ties to the al-Qaeda terror group, from the US federal prison. She has been serving an 86-year sentence for trying to kill US officers in Afghanistan.

However, the attorney representing Siddique has said "she has absolutely no involvement with" the taking of hostages at the synagogue and said the perpetrator is not Siddiqui's brother."

The hostage situation was resolved after 10 hours.

Assets including local, state and federal SWAT teams were brought in to assist with the situation, as well as the FBI's hostage rescue team, CNN quoted Colleyville Police Chief Michael Miller as saying at press conference.

Following the incident, President Joe Biden thanked the state, local and federal law enforcement for rescuing the hostages.

He said, "There is more we will learn in the days ahead about the motivations of the hostage taker."

"Let me be clear to anyone who intends to spread hate—we will stand against anti-Semitism and against the rise of extremism in this country," he warned.

Rubin reacts:

Michael Rubin, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, wrote in his column published in AEI website: " As I write, the situation remains unresolved, but the focus on Aafia Siddiqui shows just how deep-rooted terrorism in Pakistan has become."

"Pakistan’s embrace of Aafia is just the tip of the iceberg. The Pakistani government continues to let those responsible for the 2008 Mumbai attacks—terrorist attacks which killed Americans—to roam free. Pakistan’s intelligence service knowingly provided Al Qaeda leader Usama Bin Laden with safe-haven. And, while the Biden administration discusses the Taliban take over of Afghanistan as if it occurred in a vacuum, the reality is that the Taliban’s rampage through Afghanistan this summer was effectively a Pakistani invasion," he wrote.