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Sicily’s Jews have their first rabbi in 500 years. Italy’s Jewish establishment won’t accept them.
CATANIA, Italy (JTA) — Rabbi Gilberto Ventura believes his synagogue has the most beautiful view in the world. Located in the tower of a century-old castle on the slopes of Mt. Etna in the eastern Sicilian city of Catania, the synagogue is wedged between a snow-capped volcano and the sun-kissed Mediterranean sea.
The 49-year-old Brazil-born rabbi also thinks his congregation is one of the most unique in the world. It’s made up mainly of Bnei Anusim — descendants of Jews forced to hide their religious practice and convert to Catholicism after the Spanish Inquisition of 1492. Before that infamous decree, Sicily was home to tens of thousands of Jews.
The synagogue, which was first inaugurated last fall, is the result of decades of grassroots efforts by those descendants in Catania to find each other and forge a sense of community that had been lacking for centuries.
Hiring a full-time rabbi was the last piece of the puzzle, and Ventura, who has a long history of working with communities of Bnei Anusim in Brazil, was a natural candidate. He arrived in Catania in January.
“I really believe that the future Judaism in the world, especially in some places like Italy and, of course, Brazil, is connected to the Bnei Anusim, and the need to embrace the Bnei Anusim,” Ventura said.
But in an ongoing point of frustration, the formal organization representing Italian Jewry, the Union of Italian Jewish Communities (UCEI), does not recognize them as Jews.
“In the case of Catania, this strange Jewish community hasn’t passed all the steps the law requires,” said Giulio Di Segni, the vice president of UCEI.
He was referring to the fact that the community did not seek UCEI’s permission before establishing themselves under the name “Jewish community of Catania.” Per Italian law, UCEI has a monopoly on acknowledging and establishing Jewish communal life in Italy — including authority over who can use the term “Jewish community of” in formal ways.
“UCEI can’t accept this because it is too easy,” he added. “We are not against their synagogue or their way of prayer, but they cannot use the name ‘Jewish community of Catania.’”
The rooftop of the Castello Leucatia, where the community meets, has a large menorah and a view of the Mediterranean. (David I. Klein)
Catania’s Jewish community members told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency a variety of stories about their Jewish backgrounds. Some came from families that always outwardly identified as Jewish. Others identified the source of family traditions practiced by parents and grandparents who — as descendants of Jews who faced persecution for practicing Judaism — still felt the need to hide aspects of their Jewishness from the public eye.
In the midst of questions about their ancestry, the majority of the Jewish community members have undergone Orthodox conversions. But that hasn’t led to their acceptance.
Benito Triolo, president of the Catania Jewish community, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that he first came to Judaism at the age of 40, thanks to the insight of a Jewish friend in Palermo, Sicily’s capital and most populous city. Working together, they established a Charter of Sicilian Jewry, which aimed to identify and highlight the Jewish heritage of neighborhoods across the island.
While working on that project, Triolo came closer to his own Jewish heritage, and after years of study, he completed an Orthodox conversion through a rabbi in Miami 25 years ago.
Another community member, who was born Alessandro Scuderi but today goes by the name of Yoram Nathan, first felt drawn to Judaism as a child watching news of the Six-Day War in 1967. At first, he was laughed at by other members of his family — except his grandmother, who happened to have a tradition of lighting eight candles in early winter and baking flat unleavened bread around Easter time.
Decades of study later, Scuderi also completed a formal conversion to Judaism before an Orthodox rabbinic court, or beit din.
Others had more straightforward backgrounds.
“I was born in a Jewish family,” said David Scibilia, the community’s secretary. “Frankly speaking, we were not hiding or deep in the shadows in this part of the country.”
Scibilia said that his father explained to him that he was a Jew as early as the age of four. Within their own home, they observed holidays and kept Shabbat — no easy task since Italian schools at the time of his childhood in the 1970s had class on Saturdays. He did not eat meat until he was an adult and was able to acquire kosher meat.
He said that his family had maintained their Jewish identity since the days of the Inquisition and married amongst a small group of other similar families.
“I was a Jew, but not part of any community,” Scibilia said. “Just my family was my community.”
An aerial view of the city of Catania shows the Mt. Etna volcano in the background, Jan. 28, 28, 2022. (Fabrizio Villa/Getty Images)
Scibilia explained that once he had a child of his own, he realized he did not want her to have the same lonely Jewish experience. But when he reached out to UCEI, he said he found the proverbial door to organized Jewish life shut. Earning membership in Jewish community organizations across Western Europe involves a strict vetting process, and many groups require applicants to prove their mothers’ Jewishness according to varying standards.
Scibilia’s experience was echoed by Jews outside of the community in Catania and across Italy’s south who talked to JTA — a feeling of neglect or rejection by UCEI for those who fall outside of the norms of Italian Judaism.
UCEI currently recognizes 19 Jewish communities across northern Italy and just one in the south, in Naples, which has jurisdiction over the rest of the southern half of the peninsula and the island of Sicily. The organization recognizes around 28,000 Jews in total across the country.
Scibilia noted that despite his Jewish upbringing, he has multiple certificates of conversion from Orthodox rabbis. The first came from a beit din of American rabbis from who traveled to Syracuse, Sicily, to assess Scibilia and others like him in Sicily. His second comes from the conversion court of the Israeli Chief Rabbinate, which is known for its exacting Orthodox standards.
Both were rejected by Italy’s own Orthodox rabbinate, and he was forced to stand before another rabbinic court in Italy.
“I have at this moment — don’t start to laugh — three documents that prove that I am a Jew, two Ketubah [marriage contracts] for my wedding, and so on, again and again and again,” Scibilia said.
Others’ experiences in the region have been even more fraught, he said.
“The problem in Italy, that if you try to study with any rabbi here, you can study for 20 years, maybe you can die even before you reach the end of the tunnel,” he said. “From my point of view, they are playing with the spirituality of these people.”
In a statement last year, UCEI called the the Catanians “a phantom ‘Jewish community’” and accused them of “misleading the local institutions and deluding believers and sympathizers into adhering to traditional religious rites, never actually recognized or authorized by the Italian rabbinical authority.”
“Between UCEI and the Italian republic is an agreement signed in ‘87,” Di Segni said. “This law means everything about Jewish communities in Italy is through the Union Jewish community in Italy (UCEI).”
Noemi Di Segni, shown in Rome in 2017, is president of the Union of Jewish Communities in Italy. (Stefano Montesi/Corbis via Getty Images)
Triolo said he isn’t too concerned about UCEI’s recognition.
“Ours is a process of refounding old communities that existed as early as 200 and up to 1492,” Triolo said. “Our recognition is already in our history. At that time the UCEI did not exist. We were there and we simply returned!”
No one knows when Jews first arrived in Sicily, but the Talmud tells a story that claims Rabbi Akiva, a well-known early rabbinic sage, visited the island in the early second century and told of a small Jewish community in Syracuse. Some historians believe the Roman writer Caecilius Calactinus — who was born in a town near Messina in the first century B.C.E — to have been of Jewish origin.
All agree that over the course of history, Sicily’s Jews watched as the island was traded between Greeks, Carthaginians, Romans, Arabs, Normans and half a dozen other empires. The narrative has also long been that Jewish life there ended five centuries ago, under Spanish rule.
The Spanish empire’s Jews suffered the same fate as Jews from the Iberian peninsula, who would become known to the world as Sephardim when they were expelled in 1492.
The descendents of Spain — and Sicily — spread throughout the world, establishing communities in North Africa, throughout the Ottoman empire, in the Netherlands and ultimately the British Isles and North America, as it was believed that Judaism faded away in their homelands.
Catania’s Jews disagree, arguing that many Jews practiced their religion over the centuries, in secret.
Triolo and others in the community formally inaugurated their synagogue in October. It was furnished with Torah scrolls donated by the Ohev Sholom synagogue in Washington, D.C.
The synagogue is situated in the tower of the Castello Luecatia, an early 20th-century structure built by a merchant believed to be of Jewish origin. The building was granted to the community by the city’s municipality.
“So they had the people, they had a synagogue, but they needed somebody to teach,” Ventura said.
The community meets in the Castello Luecatia, an early 20th-century structure built by a merchant believed to be of Jewish origin. (David I. Klein)
Ventura, who is Orthodox, may be the island’s first permanent working rabbi in over 500 years, but it’s not his first time working with Bnei Anusim.
Back in his native Brazil, Ventura was the leader of the Synagogue Without Borders, an organization through which he served 15 communities in Brazil’s north that were made up of descendants of Jews who came with the first Portuguese colonists to South America and who ultimately had to hide their identity as the Inquisition spread to the New World.
His work there put him in conflict with Brazil’s Jewish establishment, too. But Ventura is unfazed.
In Brazil, he founded synagogues and summer camps and built mikvahs and yeshivas across the country’s north. Since 2015, he has facilitated the conversion of hundreds of Bnei Anusim, bringing them back into the fold of mainstream Orthodox Judaism.
“I am a teacher since I was 21 years old,” he said. “Now I am 49, along with my wife. It’s one of the things we love to do, and know how to do. To teach Jewish philosophy, to teach Torah, to teach Tanakh, to teach the story of the Jews in Brazil, and now we are starting to teach the story of the Jews in Italy, the story of the Inquisition etcetera.”
In Castello Leucatia, he leads Shabbat services with the energy of a gospel preacher, pausing between prayers to explain a verse, teach a new tune, welcome latecomers, or simply to allow the congregation to talk.
Catania community members are shown at a recent gathering. (David I. Klein)
“This is what’s most important,” he remarked during one such lull on a recent Friday night. “That they get to talk and be a community.”
Ventura had organized a Shabbat event for other Jews across Italy — from Naples to Turin — who shared his belief that the future of Judaism was in communities like the one in Catania.
“Our point of view of Judaism is that we have to be a part of society, we don’t have to insulate ourselves, we believe that Judaism has a lot to contribute to society,” Ventura said. “In Brazil, we have a lot of connections with people from the periphery, in the favela and other communities, immigrants, Indians, etcetera. So that is something we want to establish here, to teach the people a Judaism that brings good things to the wider society.”
Ventura isn’t the only one working with such communities in southern Italy. Across the Strait of Messina, Jewish life has also been on the rise in Calabria — the toe of Italy’s boot — thanks to an American-born rabbi named Barbara Aiello.
Aiello, though raised in Pittsburgh, is of Calabrian descent. She returned to the land of her ancestors in the early 2000s and began working with the Bnei Anusim there, ultimately establishing a synagogue called Ner Tamid del Sud, meaning “eternal light of the south.”
“Until now, nobody took care of Judaism in the south of Italy,” Scibilia said while looking out at the Mediterranean from the terrace of Castello Leucatia.
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Fears of Iranian Sleeper Cell Retaliation Grow in the West as Middle East War Escalates
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei listens to the national anthem as Air Force officers salute during their meeting in Tehran, Iran, Feb. 7, 2025. Photo: Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader/WANA (West Asia News Agency)/Handout via REUTERS
Fears of Iranian-backed terrorism are intensifying across Western countries, with officials warning Iran could mobilize terrorist sleeper cells and proxy networks in revenge for the unprecedented US-Israeli strikes on Saturday that killed Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei — prompting governments to raise threat levels and bolster security for Jewish and Israeli communities abroad.
Sleeper cells are covert operatives or terrorists embedded in rival countries who remain dormant until they receive orders to act and carry out attacks.
As the war in the Middle East continues to spread and escalate, officials in Germany have warned of potential Iranian retaliation targeting Jewish and Israeli institutions nationwide, prompting several federal states to step up protections and issue alerts as threat concerns mount.
“Retaliatory measures — including the possible activation of Iranian sleeper cells in Europe — cannot be ruled out,” Marc Henrichmann, who chairs the parliamentary oversight committee of the intelligence services in Germany, told the local newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung.
“The Iranian regime has repeatedly shown that it extends its use of terror beyond its own borders,” Henrichmann said. “Federal and state security authorities remain on the highest alert level and will adjust protective measures whenever necessary.”
Roman Poseck, the interior minister of the German state of Hesse, added to German outlet Die Welt that it should “be assumed that there will be an increase in the abstract threat situation, especially for Jewish, Israeli, and American institutions.”
Meanwhile, Felix Klein, the German government’s commissioner for combating antisemitism, warned to the Funke media group that, following the outbreak of conflict with Iran, “we must assume an increased threat to Jewish life in Germany.”
In France, Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez also issued a heightened alert, warning of potential threats and urging regional authorities to reinforce security around Jewish places of worship.
“In light of the current international situation in the Middle East, I reiterate my instructions to remain vigilant and ask you to immediately implement enhanced security measures for Jewish places of worship and religious gatherings,” Nuñez told French newspaper Le Figaro.
The United States and Israel carried out a series of strikes on military and leadership targets across Iran — including senior officials and Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps commanders — after negotiations over Tehran’s nuclear and missile programs failed to yield results.
Shortly after reports emerged that the US–Israeli joint operation may have killed Khamenei, US President Donald Trump released a message urging Iranians to consider a future beyond the current regime and expressing guarded hope that the moment could lead to meaningful change.
The escalation came weeks after the Iranian regime killed tens of thousands of civilians in a sweeping crackdown on last month’s anti-government protests. The outbreak of fighting also followed last June’s 12-day war between Iran and Israel, which concluded after the US joined and bombed Iranian nuclear sites.
Beyond Europe, fears of Iranian retaliation are rising in the US, as counterterrorism agencies warn that additional resources are being rushed into efforts to detect and disrupt potential revenge attacks on American soil.
Although no specific credible threats have been publicly disclosed, FBI Director Kash Patel said Saturday that US counterterrorism and intelligence agencies were operating under heightened alert, with personnel “working 24/7 … to address and disrupt any potential threats” on US soil.
“While the military handles force protection overseas, the FBI remains at the forefront of deterring attacks here at home – and will continue to have our team work around the clock to protect Americans,” Patel wrote in a post on X.
Amid growing fears of possible retaliation, Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem also said authorities are “in direct coordination with our federal intelligence and law enforcement partners as we continue to closely monitor and thwart any potential threats to the homeland.”
Concerns over the activation of Iran’s sleeper cells have surged even further after a deadly mass shooting in Austin, Texas involving a suspect with alleged support for the Islamist regime and a separate gun attack on the gym of an Iranian dissident in Richmond Hill, Ontario. Both incidents stoked fears of politically motivated violence linked to the broader regional crisis in the Middle East.
On Sunday, a gunman opened fire at a bar in Austin’s West Sixth Street district, killing two people and injuring 14 others before being shot and killed by police.
Authorities later reported finding a flag of the Islamic Republic and photographs of Iranian leaders inside the suspect’s apartment, deepening concerns about potential links between the attack and broader political or ideological influences.
According to the FBI and the Joint Terrorism Task Force, there were indicators that could suggest a possible terrorism link.
In Canada, hours after the announced death of Khamenei, a boxing gym run by Iranian-Canadian dissident activist Salar Gholami was struck by gunfire overnight.
Tehran’s ability to coordinate or inspire attacks on American soil has long been a concern for US law enforcement and intelligence officials — a fear that only deepened after Trump ordered the assassination of Iranian General Qasem Soleimani in 2020.
Amid the 12-day war in June, NBC News reported that Iran had privately warned the United States that it could activate sleeper cells on American soil in response to military action. While no specific plots were publicly disclosed, US authorities increased domestic security measures and intelligence monitoring in anticipation of possible attacks. Vice President JD Vance said the Trump administration was examining the possibility of an Iran-backed homeland attack “very closely.”
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‘Death to America’: Campus Student Groups Express Solidarity With Iran, Call for Uprising Against US
A pro-Hamas activist wears a keffiyeh while marching from the City University of New York to Columbia University. Photo: Eduardo Munoz via Reuters Connect
Anti-Zionist student groups across the US proclaimed solidarity with the aims of Islamism and jihad following a joint military operation between the US and Israel which killed Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and dozens of other high-level regime officials on Saturday.
“Death to America,” posted a group which calls itself Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD), a Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) spinoff which serves as an umbrella group for a consortium of revolutionary organizations, some of which are formally recognized by the university. “We yearn for the end of the US settler colonial project. This should not be a controversial position.”
In other posts, the group shared an April 24 tweet in which Khamenei told pro-Hamas college students, who were in the middle of convulsing higher education institutions with illegal building occupations and antisemitic hate crimes, that they are “on the right side of history” and another which said “Iran has every right to defend itself against zionist [sic] warfare.”
A torrent of criticism followed the comments, leading Columbia University to denounce CUAD for falsely claiming to be a university entity.
“The group that calls itself ‘CUAD’ is not a recognized student group, or affiliated in any way with the university,” the institution said on the X social media platform, pointing to a July 2025 statement by former interim president Claire Shipman which formally proscribed any official correspondence or communication with CUAD. “There is no evidence that anyone currently in control of their account is a current Columbia student, staff, or faculty member. They are illegally using the Columbia name.”
Dr. Asaf Romirowsky, executive director of Scholars for Peace in the Middle East, said American officials should take CUAD’s rhetoric seriously.
“Cheering on Hamas and supporting Iran, a state sponsor of terrorism that has scores of American blood on their hands, surely warrants consequences,” he said. “We already have a great and sensible law on the books which says that while we welcome anyone who wishes to come here, attend university, and get an education, we do not permit people who openly support and advocate for terrorism. Actively supporting terrorism while calling for death to America and chanting ditties that advocate the annihilation of the world’s sole Jewish state should be a red line that warrants expulsion and deportation for those on student visas.”
CUAD is not the only group which denounced what the US dubbed “Operation Epic Fury.” On Sunday, New York University’s SJP chapter announced an anti-US demonstration to “demand an end to this criminal war that benefits no one other than US corporate interests.”
Meanwhile, DMVSJP, a network of SJP groups operating in Washington DC, Maryland, and Virginia, implored socialists and other revolutionary groups to attend a demonstration outside the White House on Monday, charging that “another US-backed war would mean death and displacement abroad and repression at home.”
The University of Chicago’s SJP chapter cheered Iran’s retaliatory strikes against US assets in Bahrain.
Some protests have kicked off already, according to social media reports, and have seen members of Yale’s SJP chapter brandishing “Death to America” signs. Prior to the demonstration, the group parroted propaganda confected by what remained of Iran’s political leadership following this weekend’s strikes, accusing the US of “killing children, including civilians.”
In the United Kingdom, the Ahlul-Bayt Islamic Society of University College London said, “This is not the end to resistance. The Shia in the west [sic] must remain aware and ready.”
Writing to The Algemeiner on Sunday, Sabrina Soffer, research fellow at the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs, said SJP’s statements are indicative of an ideology which contradicts itself.
“Even after the death of one of the Middle East’s most brutal butchers, they cannot offer even a scintilla of credit to Israel or the United States for confronting a regime that has terrorized its own people for decades,” Soffer said. “They brand themselves ‘anti-war’ yet refuse to recognize that the only genuinely anti-war force in this equation is the one dismantling the infrastructure of terror and repression. Israeli and American actions aimed at weakening a violent theocracy are not acts of aggression against the Iranian people — they are part of a rescue operation on behalf of a population held hostage by its rulers.”
She added, “What is truly un-progressive is the arrogance of presuming to speak for Iranians while ignoring those who have risked imprisonment and death resisting the regime from within. It is entitlement masquerading as solidarity.”
Students for Justice in Palestine’s national office has previously discussed its strategy of using the anti-Zionist student movement as a weapon for destroying the US in a now-deleted tweet that was posted to X in September 2024.
“Divestment is not an incrementalist goal. True divestment necessitates nothing short of the total collapse of the university structure and American empire itself,” the organization said. “It is not possible for imperial spoils to remain so heavily concentrated in the metropole and its high-cultural repositories without the continuous suppression of populations that resist the empire’s expansion; to divest from this is to undermine and eradicate America as we know it.”
The tweet was at the time the latest in a series of progressive revelations of SJP’s revolutionary goals and its apparent plans to amass armies of students and young people for a long campaign of subversion against US institutions, including the economy, military, and higher education. Like past anti-American movements, SJP has also been fixated on the presence and prominence of Jews in American life and the US’s alliance with Israel, the world’s only Jewish state.
On the same day the tweet was posted, CUAD distributed literature calling on students to enlist in a holy war against Israel and the US.
“This booklet is part of a coordinated and intentional effort to uphold the principles of the thawabit and the Palestinian resistance movement overall by transmitting the words of the resistance directly,” it said. “This material aims to build popular support for the Palestinian war of national liberation, a war which is waged through armed struggle.”
Other sections of the literature were explicitly Islamist, invoking the name of “Allah, the most gracious” and referring to Hamas as the “Islamic Resistance Movement.” Proclaiming, “Glory to Gaza that gave hope to the oppressed, that humiliated the ‘invincible’ Zionist army,” it said its purpose was to build an army of Muslims worldwide.
“We call upon the masses of our Arab and Islamic nations, its scholars, men, institutions, and active forces to come out in roaring crowds tomorrow,” it added, referring to an event which took place in December. “We also renew our invitation to the free people and those with living consciences around the world to continue and escalate their global public movement, rejecting the occupation’s crimes, in solidarity with our people and their just cause and legitimate struggle.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
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Authorities Investigate Whether Austin Shooter Maintained Ties to Terrorist Groups
Heidi Case lays a decorative heart with her dog, Sophia, outside of Buford’s, a popular roadhouse-style bar which was the scene of a deadly mass shooting in Austin, Texas, US, March 2, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Nuri Vallbona
US federal law enforcement is investigating whether Islamist extremism and loyalty to the Islamic Republic of Iran motivated a deadly mass shooting in downtown Austin, Texas, raising renewed concerns about foreign‑inspired violence on American soil.
The suspected gunman, 53‑year‑old Ndiaga Diagne, was killed by police early Sunday after opening fire on customers outside Buford’s Backyard Beer Garden on the popular Sixth Street, killing two people and wounding 14 others. From the outset, investigators said symbols tied to Iran’s theocratic regime and radical Islamist sentiment were present in the case, even as authorities stopped short of declaring a definitive motive.
Law enforcement officials said Diagne was wearing a sweatshirt that read “Property of Allah” layered over an undershirt with an Iranian flag design when he began shooting from his SUV before moving on foot with a rifle. Inside his vehicle, investigators also found a Quran, and at his home, a search uncovered an Iranian flag and photographs of Iranian regime leaders, according to federal and local officials.
The FBI has dispatched its Joint Terrorism Task Force to help determine whether the attack was inspired by extremist ideology or geopolitical events. Acting FBI Special Agent Alex Doran said there were “indicators on the subject and in his vehicle that indicate a potential nexus to terrorism,” while cautioning that it was still too early to confirm a clear motive.
Adding to the scrutiny, investigators and analysts have cited a post Diagne made on X (formerly Twitter) on April 28, 2025, in which he wrote: “THE ISLAMIC REVOLUTION IS ETERNAL AND HERE TO STAY UNTIL THE END OF TIME, you Zionist and islamophobes can be angry all you want but you can’t do a damn thing about it, no matter what [sic].”
Diagne was responding to a post from Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, who threatened Israel and touted Iran’s military strength.
In a separate post, the alleged shooter also repudiated Jewish investigative journalist Laura Loomer as an “Israel first whore” and told her to “move to Israel you f—king b—ch.”
The timing of the shooting has also drawn attention. It occurred just hours after the United States and Israel launched coordinated military strikes against targets inside Iran, in a campaign officials described as necessary to counter Tehran’s regional aggression. While authorities have not publicly confirmed any operational connection between those foreign actions and the shooting, some federal officials are examining whether the geopolitical climate contributed to Diagne’s actions. Some analysts have raised concern that the joint US-Israel operations might inspire an uptick in Islamist extremism and terrorism on American soil.
Diagne, a naturalized US citizen originally from Senegal, arrived in the United States in 2000 on a tourist visa, later becoming a lawful permanent resident and then a citizen in 2013. Police said he had prior encounters with authorities related to mental health issues, but was not previously known to terrorism investigators.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott condemned the attack and ordered heightened security measures statewide, warning of threats tied to international conflict spilling into local communities. He pointed out that “sleeper cells” could become activated amid the war in Iran and commit acts of terrorism in the US.
“You oftentimes see when there’s a war breaking out like this, where the United States may be going against a country like Iran, that you could have either sleeper [cells] or lone wolves acting,” he said.
The shooting shattered a normally lively early‑morning crowd on Sixth Street, a corridor lined with bars and restaurants popular with University of Texas students, residents, and tourists. Victims were rushed to nearby hospitals, with three initially reported in critical condition.
As the FBI and local authorities continue to comb through digital records, interviews, and forensic evidence, they have not yet publicly tied Diagne to any foreign terrorist organization, and officials stress that any conclusions about motive remain provisional.