DOJ, Boulder police outline attacker's confession

Flowers and Israeli flag outside site of Boulder attack on Jewish group

Flowers and an Israeli flag outside the site of a Boulder attack on a local Jewish group

(Image credit: Chet Strange / Getty Images)

published 3 June 2025

What happened

The Justice Department and police in Boulder, Colorado, said Monday that the man arrested for Sunday's attack on a local Jewish group had admitted to throwing Molotov cocktails at the "Zionists" in a plot to kill them. The suspect, Mohamed Sabry Soliman, faces state attempted murder charges and a federal hate crime charge. Two of the 12 people burned by his incendiary devices are still hospitalized, police said.

Soliman, 45, said he brought 18 incendiary devices to kill Jewish participants in a weekly "Run for Their Lives" hostage-awareness walk, according to a police affidavit. "He said he had to do it, he should do it and he would not forgive himself if he did not do it," but only threw two of the Molotov cocktails "because he got scared and had never hurt anyone before." Soliman intended to use his gas-filled backpack sprayer on himself "because he had planned on dying," police said.

Soliman admitted he planned the attack for a year and "wanted them all to die, he had no regrets and he would go back and do it again," acting U.S. Attorney J. Bishop Grewell said at a news conference. He wanted to use guns but "could not purchase them because he was not a legal citizen." U.S. officials said Soliman, an Egyptian citizen, entered the U.S in 2022 on a since-expired tourist visa and later applied for asylum. His still-pending asylum claim put his immigration status in a legal "gray area," The New York Times said.

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Rafi Schwartz has worked as a politics writer at The Week since 2022, where he covers elections, Congress and the White House. He was previously a contributing writer with Mic focusing largely on politics, a senior writer with Splinter News, a staff writer for Fusion's news lab, and the managing editor of Heeb Magazine, a Jewish life and culture publication. Rafi's work has appeared in Rolling Stone, GOOD and The Forward, among others.