Two days before federal authorities say Ayman Mohamad Ghazali carried out Thursday’s antisemitic terror attack at a synagogue outside Detroit, the driver in the car-ramming violence allegedly walked out of a fireworks store with more than $2,000 worth of explosives.

Speaking exclusively with NBC News, Phantom Fireworks said that a person who registered as Ayman Ghazali visited one of the company’s Detroit-area stores at 1:39 p.m. March 10 and spent about 45 minutes inside.

Days later, Ghazali allegedly rammed a pickup into Temple Israel in West Bloomfield Township, setting off a fire at the synagogue where a preschool attended by more than 100 children was in session, officials said. None of the children or staff members were injured.

Ghazali, a Dearborn Heights resident, was killed by the synagogue’s security team following the attack.

The FBI on Friday said that Ghazali was “forensically confirmed” as the assailant. Prior, officials said they believed he was the synagogue attacker, but were awaiting forensics as the driver’s body was badly burned.

Ghazali had no previous criminal history, no registered weapons, and he had never been the subject of a FBI investigation, Jennifer Runyan, the Special Agent in Charge of the Detroit field office, said in a news briefing Friday.

She did not speak on a motive for the attack, but the FBI has previously said it is investigating the incident as a “targeted act of violence against the Jewish community.”

Officials did not mention what caused the fire, but in the vehicle, investigators found multiple gas canisters and consumer mortar tubes that would be used to launch fireworks, according to two senior officials briefed on the investigation.

The fireworks purchase was one of several facts about Ghazali’s background leading up to the attack that came into focus Friday.

Ghazali, a U.S. citizen originally from Lebanon, lost several family members in an Israeli airstrike in Lebanon last week, according to local officials in Michigan. The strike killed two of his brothers, who were known to be members of Hezbollah, and his niece and nephew, an official told NBC News.

Investigators are looking into Ghazali’s possible ties to suspected members of Hezbollah in Lebanon, according to a source familiar with the matter. He had been questioned several times about these possible contacts upon his return to the U.S. from overseas, the source said.

In recent weeks, hundreds of people in Lebanon have been killed and more than 750,000 people displaced amid escalating Israeli attacks, which were launched after Hezbollah struck Israel in retaliation for the war on Iran.

In Michigan, Alan Zoldan, Phantom Fireworks’ executive vice president, said the store employee who rang up Ghazali’s order recalled that “he certainly had no appearance of nervousness.”

“He was going to be celebrating Eid, you know, the end of the Ramadan,” Zoldan said. Eid al-Fitr, a holiday celebrated by Muslims to mark the end of the fast, is next week.

Phantom Fireworks said it requires all customers to register their identification before making a purchase. After the synagogue attack, the company found Ghazali’s name and address in its records, which it said federal investigators requested by subpoena.

Video Phantom Fireworks shared with NBC News shows the man who identified himself as Ghazali, 41, walking into the store and registering his identification at the front desk before he starts shopping. About 15 minutes later, he walks up to the register with a mostly full cart, fills out paperwork and begins checking out. Once all the items are scanned and on the counter, he turns the cart around and continues shopping for roughly 5 more minutes.

About 20 minutes later, footage shows the man pushing the cart out of the store to a waiting pickup. He loads the truck bed, hands the cart off to the store employee and drives off.

Ghazali bought roughly 20 types of items from Phantom Fireworks, including a “finale rack” product that the company says should be lit with people at least 100 yards away.

It’s not clear if fireworks purchased from this store were used in the synagogue attack.

The company also said that a $2,000 purchase is not inherently noteworthy.

“For our, you know, biggest customers that are going big at home — which we have so many of — spending $2,000, $5,000, $10,000 happens repeatedly … $5,000 and $10,000 is actually pretty common,” said Phantom Fireworks vice president Jessi Dragoiu.

Dearborn Heights Mayor Mo Baydoun condemned the attack Friday, saying: “We do know that the individual had recently suffered devastating and personal losses overseas due to an Israeli air strike on his family’s home in Lebanon, leaving two children dead. Grief is real, and it’s heartbreaking, but let me be clear, that is not an excuse.”

Dearborn Heights police chief Michael Guzowski said any relevant records and background information were shared with investigators. He said there’s no credible information indicating an ongoing threat to residents and the city has increased monitoring as a precaution.

In a news briefing on Friday, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer called the attack an act of antisemitism.

“It was hate, plain and simple,” Whitmer said at the briefing. “We will fight this ancient and rampant evil. We will stand together as we do it, and we will call it out. We must lower the rhetoric in this state and in this country, especially at this moment where we have seen such a rise in anti-Semitism and more attacks on the Jewish community.”

The Oakland County Sheriff’s Office referred NBC News to the FBI. The FBI declined to comment on this story.

In 2025, the Big Ten Tournament was hugely important for Michigan basketball.

The Wolverines had lost four of their final six regular-season games, falling out of the Big Ten title race in Year 1 of the Dusty May era. Putting together a competent weekend in Indianapolis was critical to take some momentum into the NCAA Tournament.

2026, however, is different. No. 3 Michigan (29-2, 19-1 Big Ten) was arguably the best team in the nation this season, dominating the Big Ten en route to a league-record 19 wins in conference play and a four-game gap between it and the next closest team.

A YEAR TO REMEMBER: 10 reasons Michigan basketball had historic 2026 season in Big Ten

Michigan has not shied away from discussing its ultimate goal − the national championship − and the Big Ten regular-season title was a key part of that. But what about the league tournament – a potential three games of distraction before the real postseason begins?

“Sometimes there are coaches that discredit the Big Ten tournament,” May said this week. “Whoever wins this tournament this year in what we think is the best league in the country, then we’re going to have a lot of respect for them and the job they did.

Drivers across Metro Detroit continue to see higher prices at the pump. And the escalating war in Iran is worrying some that higher prices across the board will soon follow. 

“It’s very frustrating because I don’t like these gas prices, and I want them to go down. I hate the war, and I want the war to end,” said Aywon Williams from Detroit.

It now costs an average of over $3.60 for Michigan’s motorists for a gallon of gas, which is around 20%  higher than it was just 12 days ago when the war in Iran began. 

But experts like Kevin Ketels, an associate professor in Global Supply Chain Management at Wayne State, say that the costs of food, housing, clothing, and more should soon be, if not already, on the rise as well. 

“So there is a very large ripple effect, you simply can’t avoid it when 20 percent of the World’s crude oil comes out of this part of the world,” said Ketels.

Ketels says if crude oil’s price continues to climb because of the Strait of Hormuz being under attack, so will the prices of most widely used products, because of the need for crude oil, which keeps equipment, delivery trucks, airplanes, and more running.

“And that cost is almost immediately being felt by us, by everyone globally and it will be reflected in higher prices in anything that requires transportation,” Ketels said. 

Theo Pinson from Southfield told CBS Detroit he’s seen increasing costs all over the place. 

“Food and everything, I just came over here from Meijer, and everything is sky high,” Pinson said.

It’s uncertain when the war against Iran will end, but experts say it will take time to smooth out supply chain disruptions, even when it does, so price increases could persist for weeks or even months.

“What’s had to happen in the Middle East is that they’ve had to shut down production because there’s nowhere to put all the oil, so when you shut down production, it takes time to get everything restarted,” said Ketels.

President Trump has said that rising gas prices are a very small price to pay for the U.S., the world and peace.