Editorial illustration
Terror came to American soil twice on Thursday, and if you’re not paying attention, you should be. A car loaded with mortar shells plowed through the preschool entrance of Temple Israel in West Bloomfield, Michigan, where 140 children were inside. Hours earlier, a convicted ISIS supporter opened fire in an ROTC classroom at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia, killing a retired military officer and wounding two others. Two attacks. Two different states. One unmistakable pattern that the establishment media will twist itself into pretzels trying to avoid naming.
Let’s start in Michigan. The explosive-laden vehicle barreled through the doors of Temple Israel — a Reform synagogue in Oakland County, just twenty miles north of Dearborn, which boasts the largest Muslim and Arab population in the United States. The car tore down the hallway of a preschool filled with children, and it was only by the grace of God and the quick action of armed security that this did not become the deadliest attack on American Jews since the Tree of Life massacre. Security guards engaged the driver with gunfire. The suspect was found dead in his vehicle, his body burned beyond recognition when the car ignited. According to the New York Post, the vehicle is registered to a naturalized U.S. citizen from Lebanon who resides in Dearborn. Oakland County Sheriff Michael Bouchard confirmed that no children or staff were harmed, though one security guard was struck by the vehicle and hospitalized, and at least 30 emergency responders were treated for smoke inhalation. The FBI has confirmed it is treating the attack as a targeted act of violence against the Jewish community.
Here is what should chill every American to the bone: the FBI’s Detroit field office had trained Temple Israel’s staff on active shooter protocols just weeks earlier, in January. That training may well have saved 140 young lives on Thursday. But why was such training necessary in the first place?
Now turn your attention south to Norfolk. Mohamed Bailor Jalloh, a 36-year-old former Virginia National Guard member born in Sierra Leone, walked into a classroom in Constant Hall at Old Dominion University and asked if it was an ROTC class. When someone confirmed it was, he opened fire, killing the instructor — a retired military officer — and wounding two cadets. He reportedly shouted “Allahu Akbar” during the attack. Jalloh was not an unknown quantity. He was convicted in 2016 of conspiring to provide material support to ISIS after he purchased an assault rifle for a planned attack on U.S. soil and sent $500 to undercover agents he believed were ISIS operatives. He was sentenced to eleven years in federal prison in 2017 and appears to have been released from federal custody in 2024. What system failed so catastrophically that Mohamed Bailor Jalloh was a free man on March 12, 2026?
FBI Director Kash Patel credited the brave students who stopped the carnage. According to the Daily Wire, a heroic ROTC cadet stabbed Jalloh to death before he could claim more victims. “They basically were able to terminate the threat,” said Dominique Evans, special agent in charge of the FBI’s Norfolk office. The FBI is investigating the Old Dominion shooting as an act of terrorism. President Trump, speaking at a White House Women’s History Month event, addressed both attacks. “I want to send our love to the Michigan Jewish community and all of the people in the Detroit area,” the President said. “I’ve been fully briefed, and it’s a terrible thing. We’re going to be right down to the bottom of it.”
The heroes of this dark day are not the politicians or the pundits. They are the armed security guards at Temple Israel who put themselves between evil and 140 children. They are the ROTC cadets at Old Dominion who charged a gunman when every instinct told them to run. They are the first responders who rushed into smoke and chaos. Scripture tells us in Joshua 1:9, “Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.” Those words were made flesh on Thursday by ordinary Americans who chose courage over fear.
The establishment will call for calm. They will urge us not to draw conclusions. They will remind us that these are isolated incidents. But the faithful know better. When evil targets houses of worship and classrooms where young Americans train to defend their country, it is not isolated. It is a declaration. And it demands a response worthy of a nation that still believes it is worth defending.
What will it take for our leaders to treat the threat of radical Islamic terrorism with the seriousness it demands? Providence watches over the bold.
About The Author
