The Associated Press / Police vehicles sit outside the Temple Israel synagogue Friday in West Bloomfield Township, Mich.

DEARBORN HEIGHTS, Mich. — A Lebanese-born man who had learned a week earlier that four of his family members were killed in an Israeli airstrike in his native country, waited in his car outside a synagogue for two hours before ramming into the building where dozens of children were inside.

Authorities said Friday that Ayman Mohammad Ghazali, 41, crashed his car into Temple Israel outside Detroit on Thursday afternoon, then started firing his gun through the windshield, exchanging fire with an armed security guard.

Following the attack Thursday, a person familiar with the matter speaking to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity said security guards in the building killed the gunman. Later, authorities said guards “neutralized” him. But Jennifer Runyan, the special agent in charge of the FBI’s Detroit field office, said during a news conference Friday that ultimately Ghazali fatally shot himself after he got stuck in his vehicle and the engine caught fire. Officials later found large quantities of commercial grade fireworks and several jugs of a liquid believed to be gasoline.

One of the largest Reform synagogues

The FBI, which is leading the investigation, described the attack on one of the nation’s largest Reform synagogues, located in suburban West Bloomfield Township north of Detroit, as an act of violence targeting the Jewish community.

Runyan said that law enforcement didn’t have enough evidence to call the attack an act of terror at this time, but said that investigations were ongoing.

None of the 140 children, teachers and staff inside the synagogue were injured, authorities said.

The agency has not provided an exact motive for the attack. “We’re just 30 hours into this, and we’re letting the facts and evidence lead,” Runyan said.

Temple Israel had taken steps to prepare for an attack. Last summer, the synagogue announced it was hiring a former local police lieutenant as its full-time head of security to oversee its in-house, armed security guards. Earlier this year, its clergy and staff underwent active shooter prevention and preparedness training, according to a post on Temple Israel’s Facebook page.

Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and U.S. Sen. Elissa Slotkin during a news conference Friday praised Temple Israel’s private security for swiftly stopping the attack.

“If they had not all done their jobs almost perfectly, we would be talking about an immense tragedy here with children gone,” Slotkin said.