Suspect in Colorado flamethrower attack told police he targeted ‘Zionist group’
Hello and welcome to the US politics live blog. I’m Tom Ambrose and I will be bringing you all the latest news lines over the next few hours.
We start with the news that a man accused of using a makeshift flame-thrower and an incendiary device to attack a US group bringing attention to Israeli hostages in Gaza has been charged with a federal hate crime.
Mohammed Sabry Soliman, 45, told police he had planned it for a year and targeted what he described as the “Zionist group”, the FBI said.
CNN reviewed a Facebook account matching his name and date of birth. It reported:
On the account’s page, which was last updated about 10 years ago, Soliman said he attended high school and college in Egypt and later moved to Kuwait, where he had an accounting job, according to the page. That account featured photos of Mohamed Morsi, the Muslim Brotherhood leader who served as Egypt’s president from 2012 to 2013, when he was ousted in a military coup that triggered mass protests and sit-ins in Cairo.
Posts on the Facebook page expressed support for the Muslim Brotherhood protests against the removal of Morsi. One post from August 2013 featured a four-finger salute with a yellow background, a symbol supportive of the Rabaa al-Adawiya square encampment, which was violently dispersed by Egyptian security forces loyal to Egypt’s then-defense minister and current president, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi.
Twelve people were injured in the attack in Colorado, some with burns, as a group was concluding a weekly demonstration to raise visibility for the hostages who remain in Gaza, AP reported. Witnesses reported the man shouted “Free Palestine” during the attack.
An FBI affidavit says Soliman confessed to the attack after being taken into custody on Sunday and told the police he would do it again. The affidavit was released in support of a federal hate crime charged filed by the Justice Department on Monday.
The attack happened on the beginning of the Jewish holiday of Shavuot, which is marked with the reading of the Torah, and barely a week after a man who also yelled “Free Palestine” was charged with fatally shooting two Israeli embassy employees outside a Jewish museum in Washington.
Federal and state prosecutors filed separate criminal cases against Soliman, charging him with a hate crime and attempted murder, respectively. He faces additional state charges related to the incendiary devices, and more charges are possible in federal court, where the justice department will seek a grand jury indictment.
During a state court hearing on Monday, Soliman appeared briefly via a video link from the Boulder County Jail wearing an orange jumpsuit.
In other news:
-
The head of Ice defended his agency’s decision to arrest an 18-year-old Massachusetts high school student on his way to volleyball practice. US district judge Richard Stearns later ordered a 72-hour stay to “provide a fair opportunity for the judge who will be randomly assigned to this case” to review merits and rule on any contested issues in the case of Marcelo Gomes Da Silva.
-
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) barred its 2025 class president from attending her graduation ceremony on Friday after she delivered a speech during a commencement event the day before condemning Israel’s war in Gaza and criticizing the university’s ties to Israel.
-
China accused the US of “seriously violating” and undermining the agreements reached in Geneva in May.
-
Prosecutors in Milwaukee charged a man on Monday with four felonies for attempting to frame an undocumented immigrant he is accused of assaulting, by sending forged letters in the immigrant’s name with a threat to kill Donald Trump.
-
New York’s lieutenant governor, Antonio Delgado, announced on Monday that he is running for governor, setting up a Democratic primary battle against the sitting governor, Kathy Hochul, who selected him for the job as her deputy.
-
Chuck Schumer, the Senate’s senior Democrat, released a social media video on Monday in which he seemed to taunt Donald Trump for supposedly being too “chicken” in negotiations with Iran over its nuclear program.
Key events
Adam Gabbatt
After Joe Biden revealed his cancer diagnosis, Donald Trump offered an uncharacteristically empathetic and simple response.
“Melania and I are saddened to hear about Joe Biden’s recent medical diagnosis. We extend our warmest and best wishes to Jill and the family, and we wish Joe a fast and successful recovery,” Trump wrote on social media.
But the compassion didn’t last long. Trump soon reverted to type, dabbling in a burgeoning rightwing conspiracy theory about Biden’s health and comparing the former president, who has stage four prostate cancer, to a corpse, as Trump’s hangers-on and acolytes used the diagnosis to attack Biden and his wife.
Trump posted his well-wishing message on 18 May, after Biden’s office announced the 82-year-old had been diagnosed with an “aggressive form” of prostate cancer that has spread to his bones.
The president’s tone changed quickly, however. Trump spent Memorial Day – which the Department of Defense describes as being intended to “honor all those who died in service to the US during peacetime and war”, attacking his one time rival and his time in office. “Happy Memorial Day to all,” the president wrote on Truth Social.
Including the scum that spent the last four years trying to destroy our country through warped radical left minds, who allowed 21,000,000 million people to illegally enter our country, many of them being criminals and the mentally insane, through an open border that only an incompetent president would approve, and through judges who are on a mission to keep murderers, drug dealers, rapists, gang members, and released prisoners from all over the world, in our country so they can rob, murder, and rape again – all protected by these USA hating judges who suffer from an ideology that is sick, and very dangerous for our country.
It was clear that Trump’s “warmest and best wishes” to Biden had been firmly retracted, and that became even more transparent as Trump went on to promote an emerging, fact-free, theory that Biden hid the cancer diagnosis while in office.
“I’m surprised that the public wasn’t notified a long time ago because to get to stage nine, that’s a long time,” Trump said – seemingly conflating the Gleason score, which measures how cancerous cells look compared with normal cells, with Biden’s stage four cancer.
Trump threatens ‘large scale fines’ over transgender athlete’s participation in California high school competition
Donald Trump has threatened to impose “large scale fines” on California over the participation of a transgender athlete taking part in a high school competition.
The president wrote on Truth Social:
A Biological Male competed in California Girls State Finals, WINNING BIG, despite the fact that they were warned by me not to do so. As Governor Gavin Newscum fully understands, large scale fines will be imposed!!!
He appeared to be referring to 16-year-old AB Hernandez, a transgender athlete who took home gold in the girls high jump and the triple jump at the California high school track and field championship last weekend.
The California Interscholastic Federation (CIF), the governing board for California high school sports, changed the rules ahead of the competition to allow more cisgender girls to compete and medal in events in which Hernandez competed. CIF announced the change after Trump threatened last week to pull federal funding from California unless it bars transgender athletes from competing in girls’ sports.
Richard Luscombe
Millions of acres of Alaska wilderness will lose federal protection and be exposed to drilling and mining in the Trump administration’s latest move to prioritize energy production over the shielding of the US’s open spaces.
Doug Burgum, the interior secretary, said on Monday that the government would reverse an order issued by Joe Biden in December that banned drilling in the remote 23m-acre National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska (NPR-A), the New York Times reported.
The former president’s executive order was part of a package of protections for large areas of Alaska, some elements of which the state was challenging in court when he left office in January.
Burgum was speaking in Alaska on Monday accompanied by the Environmental Protection Agency administrator Lee Zeldin, and the energy secretary Chris Wright.
He said the Biden administration had prioritized “obstruction over production” and Biden’s order was “undermining our ability to harness domestic resources at a time when American energy independence has never been more critical”.
In a post to Twitter/X, Wright said oil production was the “engine of economic growth” in Alaska, funding more than 90% of the state’s general revenue. “Unleashing American energy goes hand in hand with unleashing American prosperity,” he wrote.
Donald Trump has pardoned two south Florida shark divers convicted of theft for freeing 19 sharks and a giant grouper from a fisherman’s longline several miles from shore.
Pardons for Tanner Mansell and John Moore Jr were signed on Wednesday. They had been convicted in 2022 of theft of property within special maritime jurisdiction.
The two men avoided prison time, but they were ordered to pay $3,343.72 in restitution, and the felony convictions prevented them from voting in Florida, owning firearms and traveling freely outside the US.
“We never stopped fighting, and justice has finally prevailed,” Moore’s attorney, Marc Seitles, said in a statement. “We are thrilled the White House considered our arguments and determined this was an unjust prosecution. We could not be happier for John and Tanner.”
Moore, who was captain of a shark-diving charter boat, and Mansell, a crew member, spotted the longline about 3 miles (5km) off the Jupiter Inlet in August 2020, according to court records. Believing it was an illegal fishing line, the men freed the sharks and grouper, reported it to state wildlife officials and brought the line back to shore.
Trump administration uses Colorado suspect’s status to push deportation agenda
Rachel Leingang
The immigration status of the man who allegedly attacked people with a makeshift flame-thrower and other incendiary devices at an event for Israeli hostages in Boulder, Colorado, has become further fodder for the Trump administration’s deportation agenda.
Mohamed Sabry Soliman, a 45-year-old who came to the US in 2022 from Egypt and overstayed his initial tourist visa, according to the US government, allegedly planned his attack on the event specifically to target Zionists, federal authorities said. He shouted “Free Palestine” while carrying out the attack, which the FBI has called an “act of terrorism”, and he was charged on Monday with a federal hate crime.
The attack combines two frequent enemies of the right – anti-Israel speech and actions, and illegal immigration – and is already being used on the right to garner support for more deportations. The response stands in contrast to how the right has reacted to attacks against Palestinians and Muslims in the US and to the conservative response to the war in Gaza. The Trump administration has also used support for Palestinians as an underpinning for deportations among college students.
The Gateway Pundit, a rightwing outlet, is referring to Soliman as “Biden’s Illegal Alien from Egypt”. Stephen Miller, Donald Trump’s deputy chief of staff, said the “terror attack” was committed by an “illegal alien”.
“He was granted a tourist visa by the Biden Administration and then he illegally overstayed that visa. In response, the Biden Administration gave him a work permit,” Miller wrote on X. “Suicidal migration must be fully reversed.”
In a post on Truth Social, Trump blamed the attack on Biden’s “ridiculous Open Border Policy”.
“He must go out under ‘TRUMP’ Policy,” Trump wrote. “Acts of Terrorism will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the Law. This is yet another example of why we must keep our Borders SECURE, and deport Illegal, Anti-American Radicals from our Homeland.”
A Boston high school student who was detained by immigration agents on Saturday while he was on his way to volleyball practice must be kept in Massachusetts for at least 72 hours, a federal judge said on Monday.
Marcelo Gomes Da Silva, 18, entered the United States on a student visa, according to a lawsuit filed on his behalf after his arrest. While his student visa status has lapsed, he is eligible for and intends to apply for asylum.
US district judge Richard Stearns ordered the 72-hour stay on Monday to “provide a fair opportunity for the judge who will be randomly assigned to this case” to review merits and rule on any contested issues.
Nonetheless, the head of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) on Monday defended his agency’s actions, saying the teen in question was “in this country illegally and we’re not going to walk away from anybody”. Gomes’s attorney asked for his immediate release.
Attorney Miriam Conrad, in a filing on Sunday, said that Gomes “has no criminal history anywhere in the world” in asking for his release.
Gomes was arrested on Saturday in Milford, Massachusetts, where he lives.
The European Union did not receive a letter from the United States in which Donald Trump’s administration made a demand for countries to submit their best offer on trade negotiations by Wednesday, according to a source familiar with the talks.
After a call with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, Trump restored a 9 July deadline to allow for talks between Washington and Brussels to continue.
Authorities said on Sunday they believed Soliman acted alone and that no other suspect was being sought, AP reported.
He was also injured and was taken to a hospital to be treated. Authorities did not give details of his injuries, but a booking photo showed him with a large bandage over one ear.
Soliman was living in the US illegally after entering the country in August 2022 on a B2 visa that expired in February 2023, Department of Homeland Security assistant secretary Tricia McLaughlin said.
She added that Soliman filed for asylum in September 2022 and was granted a work authorisation in March 2023 that had expired.
Public records listed him as living in a modest rented townhouse in Colorado Springs, where local media outlets reported federal law enforcement agents were on the scene on Sunday.
An online resume under Soliman’s name said he was employed by a Denver-area healthcare company working in accounting and inventory control, with previous employers listed as companies in Egypt.
Under education, the resume listed Al-Azhar University, a historic centre for Islamic and Arabic learning in Cairo.
Video from the scene shows a witness shouting: “He’s right there. He’s throwing molotov cocktails”, as a police officer with his gun drawn advances on a bare-chested suspect holding containers in each hand.
Alex Osante, of San Diego, said he was having lunch when he heard the crash of a bottle breaking on the ground and a “boom” sound followed by people yelling and screaming.
In video of the scene captured by Osante, people can be seen pouring water on a woman lying on the ground who Osante said had caught fire during the attack.
After the initial attack, Osante said the suspect went behind some bushes and then re-emerged and threw a petrol bomb, but apparently accidentally caught himself on fire as he threw it.
The man then took off his shirt and what appeared to be a bulletproof vest before the police arrived. The man dropped to the ground and was arrested without any apparent resistance in the video filmed by Osante.
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued a statement on Monday saying he, his wife and the nation of Israel were praying for the full recovery of the people wounded in the “vicious terror attack” in Colorado.
“Sadly, attacks like this are becoming too common across the country,” said Mark Michalek, the special agent in charge of the FBI’s Denver field office.
In New York, the police department said it had upped its presence at religious sites throughout the city for Shavuot.
The eight victims who were wounded were between 52 and 88 years old and the injuries ranged from serious to minor, officials said.
The attack occurred as people with a volunteer group called Run For Their Lives was concluding a weekly demonstration to raise visibility for the hostages who remain in Gaza.
Suspect in Colorado flamethrower attack told police he targeted ‘Zionist group’
Hello and welcome to the US politics live blog. I’m Tom Ambrose and I will be bringing you all the latest news lines over the next few hours.
We start with the news that a man accused of using a makeshift flame-thrower and an incendiary device to attack a US group bringing attention to Israeli hostages in Gaza has been charged with a federal hate crime.
Mohammed Sabry Soliman, 45, told police he had planned it for a year and targeted what he described as the “Zionist group”, the FBI said.
CNN reviewed a Facebook account matching his name and date of birth. It reported:
On the account’s page, which was last updated about 10 years ago, Soliman said he attended high school and college in Egypt and later moved to Kuwait, where he had an accounting job, according to the page. That account featured photos of Mohamed Morsi, the Muslim Brotherhood leader who served as Egypt’s president from 2012 to 2013, when he was ousted in a military coup that triggered mass protests and sit-ins in Cairo.
Posts on the Facebook page expressed support for the Muslim Brotherhood protests against the removal of Morsi. One post from August 2013 featured a four-finger salute with a yellow background, a symbol supportive of the Rabaa al-Adawiya square encampment, which was violently dispersed by Egyptian security forces loyal to Egypt’s then-defense minister and current president, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi.
Twelve people were injured in the attack in Colorado, some with burns, as a group was concluding a weekly demonstration to raise visibility for the hostages who remain in Gaza, AP reported. Witnesses reported the man shouted “Free Palestine” during the attack.
An FBI affidavit says Soliman confessed to the attack after being taken into custody on Sunday and told the police he would do it again. The affidavit was released in support of a federal hate crime charged filed by the Justice Department on Monday.
The attack happened on the beginning of the Jewish holiday of Shavuot, which is marked with the reading of the Torah, and barely a week after a man who also yelled “Free Palestine” was charged with fatally shooting two Israeli embassy employees outside a Jewish museum in Washington.
Federal and state prosecutors filed separate criminal cases against Soliman, charging him with a hate crime and attempted murder, respectively. He faces additional state charges related to the incendiary devices, and more charges are possible in federal court, where the justice department will seek a grand jury indictment.
During a state court hearing on Monday, Soliman appeared briefly via a video link from the Boulder County Jail wearing an orange jumpsuit.
In other news:
-
The head of Ice defended his agency’s decision to arrest an 18-year-old Massachusetts high school student on his way to volleyball practice. US district judge Richard Stearns later ordered a 72-hour stay to “provide a fair opportunity for the judge who will be randomly assigned to this case” to review merits and rule on any contested issues in the case of Marcelo Gomes Da Silva.
-
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) barred its 2025 class president from attending her graduation ceremony on Friday after she delivered a speech during a commencement event the day before condemning Israel’s war in Gaza and criticizing the university’s ties to Israel.
-
China accused the US of “seriously violating” and undermining the agreements reached in Geneva in May.
-
Prosecutors in Milwaukee charged a man on Monday with four felonies for attempting to frame an undocumented immigrant he is accused of assaulting, by sending forged letters in the immigrant’s name with a threat to kill Donald Trump.
-
New York’s lieutenant governor, Antonio Delgado, announced on Monday that he is running for governor, setting up a Democratic primary battle against the sitting governor, Kathy Hochul, who selected him for the job as her deputy.
-
Chuck Schumer, the Senate’s senior Democrat, released a social media video on Monday in which he seemed to taunt Donald Trump for supposedly being too “chicken” in negotiations with Iran over its nuclear program.
