Texas rabbi: Security training paid off in hostage standoff

COLLEYVILLE, Texas (AP) — U.S. and British authorities Monday continued an investigation into the weekend standoff at a Texas synagogue that ended with an armed British national dead and a rabbi crediting past security training for getting him and three members of his congregation out safely.Authorities identified the hostage-taker as a 44-year-old British national, Malik Faisal Akram, who was killed Saturday night after the last hostages ran out of Congregation Beth Israel around 9 p.m. The FBI said there was no early indication that anyone else was involved, but it had not provided a possible motive.The investigation stretched to England, where late Sunday police in Manchester announced that two teenagers were in custody in connection with the standoff. It wasn’t clear why Akram chose the synagogue, though the prison where Siddiqui is serving her sentence is in nearby Fort Worth.On Sunday night, the FBI issued a statement calling the ordeal “a terrorism-related matter, in which the Jewish community was targeted.” The agency said the Joint Terrorism Task Force is investigating.Michael Finfer, the president of the congregation, said in a statement “there was a one in a million chance that the gunman picked our congregation.”Akram used his phone during the course of negotiations to communicate with people other than law enforcement, according to a law enforcement official who was not authorized to discuss an ongoing investigation by name and spoke on condition of anonymity.Multiple people heard the hostage-taker refer to Siddiqui as his “sister” on the livestream.