A 45-year-old man accused of attacking a pro-Israel demonstration in Boulder, Colorado, with Molotov cocktails and a makeshift flamethrower faces federal hate crime charges and 16 counts of attempted first-degree murder, according to court records.
Mohamed Sabry Soliman, of El Paso County, was arrested at the scene after attacking participants of the Run for Their Lives walk, an event aimed at raising awareness about hostages still held by Hamas in Gaza and calling for their immediate release.
Twelve people were injured in the attack, including eight who were hospitalized with burn injuries.
According to court documents, Soliman entered the U.S. on a tourist visa in 2022, and was later granted a work permit that expired earlier this year. Court documents stated that he “had to use Molotov cocktails [for the attack] after he was denied the purchase of a gun due to him not being a legal citizen.”
Soliman, a husband and father of five, had allegedly been planning the attack for a year but waited until his daughter graduated from high school to carry it out.
Court documents said Soliman built the devices after learning how to make them on YouTube. He reportedly told investigators he wanted to kill “Zionist people” and would do it again.
In a new bulletin, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) described the attack as “unique” due to both the targeting of people and the use of an improvised flamethrower in addition to the improvised incendiary devices.
The bulletin also stated that DHS remains “concerned that successful Homeland attacks and messaging from Foreign Terrorist Organizations and their supporters linked to the Israel-Hamas conflict will continue to inspire violent extremists to mobilize to violence in the United States.”
In a statement, Attorney General Pamela Bondi said: “We will never tolerate this kind of hatred. We refuse to accept a world in which Jewish Americans are targeted for who they are and what they believe.”
President Donald Trump responded to the attack for the first time on Monday, writing on Truth Social that the crimes 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,” Trump added.
