Malik Faisal Akram’s greatest regret was not being a 9/11 terrorist, so he created his own dramatic attack on American soil to become a famous martyr. On Saturday,January 15, 2022, he went to Beth Israel Synagogue inColleyville, Texas and took the Rabbi and three congregants hostage for over 10 hours. During this time he kept gleefully repeating how he was going to die – not feeling sorry for himself, because he was that much closer to Paradise. He ranted on the Sabbath service livestream and then on a telephone call to his brother in England. You will hear this call – the raw voice of a terrorist trying to explain to his family why he came to America and took hostages and why he won’t surrender.

We will examine his life, his parents’ roots in Pakistan before they settled in Blackburn, England, his numerous crimes, his having been referred to the Prevent program because of his anti-American and radical Islamist ideas, and being under investigation by MI5. His family has said that he suffered from mental illness, which is undoubtedly true, but it only made him more radical. We will look at the years before he came here, when his mental state deteriorated after his divorce, loss of his home and job. The final straw seems to have been his younger brother’s death from Covid19 when Faisal promised him he would become a martyr.

His quest was to get the release of Aafia Siddiqui, aka Lady Al Qaeda, a Pakistani terrorist imprisoned in Texas, near Beth Israel. His fantasy was for them both to be shot, in a kind of Romeo and Juliet scenario outside the synagogue. In the end, the hostages escaped and he died alone, but not without reaching his dream. The Blackburn Muslim Community posted a statement on their Facebook page asking for Allah to “bless him with the highest ranks of Paradise.”