Two men arrested in the UK as part of Texas synagogue hostage-taker investigation
Last week, two men were arrested in the English cities of Birmingham and Manchester and were held for questioning, Greater Manchester Police said without elaborating.
Boakyewaa Lawrencia 
Two men were arrested in the English city of Manchester on Wednesday as part of the investigation into the hostage standoff in Colleyville, Texas.
Malik Faisal Akram, a 44-year-old British national, held four people hostage at Congregation Beth Israel in Colleyville in an 11-hour standoff with police on January 15 that ended with his death.
UK counterterrorism investigators have been helping US authorities look into the incident, which is being treated by the FBI as a hate crime and an act of terrorism.
"As part of the local investigation, two men have been arrested this morning in Manchester. They remain in custody for questioning," Greater Manchester Police said in a statement.
Last week, two men were arrested in the English cities of Birmingham and Manchester and were held for questioning, Greater Manchester Police said without elaborating.
Akram arrived in the United States in late December via New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport, a US law enforcement source familiar with the investigation told CNN.
Akram had been known to UK security services and had been the subject of a brief investigation in 2020, a UK official told CNN on Tuesday. The investigation was closed when authorities determined Akram to no longer be a threat.
The FBI believes Akram was motivated in part by a desire to see the release of convicted extremist Aafia Siddiqui, who is serving an 86-year federal prison sentence in Fort Worth, they've said. She was not involved in the Colleyville standoff, her attorney has said.
The incident has put Jewish communities across the United States on edge. Attacks on Jewish people have been on the rise, the Anti-Defamation League warns. And while most anti-Semitic incidents involve harassment and vandalism, assaults have also happened, with at least six turning deadly since 2016, including at Pittsburgh's Tree of Life synagogue in 2018.
