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Law enforcement officials on the Colleyville hostage investigation
Photo: RALPH LAUER / EPA
After the hostage-taking in a synagogue in the US state of Texas, the British anti-terrorist police arrested two young men.
The two teenagers were caught in the south of Manchester and are now being questioned, the responsible investigative authority said on Monday night via Twitter.
Further details were not initially announced.
The hostage-taking in the city of Colleyville near Dallas took place on Saturday.
The perpetrator, whom the police identified as a 44-year-old Briton, took four hostages – including the rabbi – into his power during a service in the synagogue in the morning and holed up with them.
After hours of negotiations with the man, special forces broke into the synagogue and brought the hostages to safety unharmed.
The perpetrator died – the police did not say exactly how.
The authorities have also kept a low profile on the background.
US President Joe Biden and the British Foreign Office described the act as an "act of terrorism".
US media, citing investigators, reported that the hostage-taker wanted to free a Pakistani scientist imprisoned in Texas.
She was arrested in Ghasni, Afghanistan, in July 2008 and sentenced to 86 years in prison by a US federal judge in 2010 for an attack on US soldiers in Afghanistan.
During interrogation at a police station, she took a gun lying on the ground and aimed it at a US soldier and a translator, without hitting them.
The woman had studied at an elite university in the USA.
Later, US authorities added her name to a list of suspects linked to al-Qaeda terrorists.
cop/dpa
