The terrorist boasted about his desire for martyrdom. "I've asked Allah for this death, Allah is with me, I'm not worried in the slightest,” he raged.
The disturbing 11-and-a-half minute audio recording, obtained from a security source, reveals a conversation between Akram and his brother, Gulbar, 43, who was speaking from a police station in Blackburn in an attempt to persuade him to surrender.
The Beth Israel synagogue in Colleyville, Texas
In a semi-coherent ramble about American conflicts overseas, the terrorist said: “Why do these f***ing motherf***ers come to our countries, rape our women and f*** our kids? I'm setting a precedent… maybe they'll have compassion for f***ing Jews.”
Special Agent Matthew Desarno outside the Beth Israel synagogue in Colleyville Texas (Getty Images)
When urged by Gulbar to end the siege, do time in prison and come back to his family, Akram shouted that he had been “praying to Allah for two years for this” and intended to die. "I'd rather live one day as a lion than 100 years as a jackal,” he said.
"I'm going to go toe-to-toe with [police] and they can shoot me dead … I’m coming home in a body bag.”
He added: "I promised my brother on his deathbed that I'd go down a martyr.” One of his younger brothers died three months ago, reportedly from Covid.
The terrorist had already made a phone call to his two teenage sons, who had been spending some time with him over the last year. Gulbar is heard pleading with him to calm down, put down the weapon and let the hostages go.
The media attention was unbearable for his elderly parents and the wider family, he added.
But Akram responded by saying he was pleased with the attention he had attracted to the cause of Muslims who were, in his view, oppressed by the US.
The fanatic, who had gained entry to the synagogue by posing as a homeless man, claimed that he was heavily armed. “I’m bombed up, I've got fucking every ammunition,” he said. He then raged about the Taliban and the United States’ foreign wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. American forces had occupied Afghanistan but the Taliban were unable to travel to the US to take their revenge, he said.
The homegrown terrorist repeatedly demanded the release of Aafia Siddiqui, a Pakistani neuroscientist suspected of having ties to al Qaeda who was convicted of trying to kill US troops in Afghanistan. He spoke emotionally about Siddiqui, known as “Lady al Qaeda”, calling her his “sister” and insisting that she be freed.
The prison where Siddiqui is serving her sentence, FMC Carswell, is in nearby Fort Worth. “She's in [prison] for 84 years, they f***ing framed her,” he said.
As the recording continues, it becomes clear to law enforcement and the terrorist’s family, who were all listening to the call, that Akram did not want to live anymore, would not put down his weapon, and intended to die in the siege, security sources said.
The audio ends shortly before the hostages ran out of the synagogue and Akram died in a hail of bullets fired by an FBI SWAT team. His final words were: “I’m going.”
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Comment
The BBC has a serious issue with Jews
It is grotesque to assert that the Texas synagogue siege was not motivated by antisemitism
