Family of Boulder Suspect Taken Into ICE Custody

The wife and five children of the man accused of throwing Molotov cocktails at demonstrators in Boulder calling for the release of Israeli hostages in Gaza, injuring 12 of them, were taken into custody by federal immigration authorities Tuesday, officials said. "We are investigating to what extent his family knew about this heinous attack, if they had knowledge of it, or if they provided support to it," Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said in a post on X.

• Mohamed Sabry Soliman, who was disguised as a gardener, had 18 Molotov cocktails and had planned to kill all the demonstrators but apparently had second thoughts, throwing just two during Sunday's attack in which he yelled "Free Palestine," police said. Soliman, 45, didn't carry out his full plan "because he got scared and had never hurt anyone before," police wrote in an affidavit.
• The two incendiary devices he did throw at the group of about 20 people staging their weekly demonstration were enough to injure more than half of them, and authorities said he expressed no regrets about the attack.

• A Department of Homeland Security official tells CBS News that Soliman's wife and children were taken into ICE custody and will be processed for expedited removal. CPR News reports that the family will likely be taken to a family detention center in Texas that was closed under the Biden administration and recently reopened.
• Soliman—an Egyptian national who is in the US illegally, according to federal officials—told authorities that no one, including his family, knew about his plans, according to court documents. He stated that he had been planning the attack for a year and was waiting until after his daughter graduated to conduct the attack, the affidavit says.
• According to an FBI affidavit, Soliman left an iPhone hidden in a desk drawer at his Colorado Springs home that contained messages to his family, the AP reports. After his arrest, his wife brought the phone to the local police department, saying it was his but was also used by other members of the family.
• Soliman, who was born in Egypt, moved three years ago to Colorado Springs, where he lived with his wife and five children, according to court documents. He previously spent 17 years living in Kuwait.

(More Boulder attack stories.)