‘Set on fire’: Horror terror attack unfolds in US city

Multiple people were set on fire in an incident US authorities are treating as a terror attack which targeted pro-Israel protesters.

Witnesses have described a man armed with molotov cocktails targeting people taking part in a rally in the city of Boulder, Colorado on Sunday.

Witnesses have described a man armed with molotov cocktails targeting people taking part in a rally in the city of Boulder, Colorado on Sunday.

Police Chief Stephen Redfearn said officers were called to the city’s courthouse about 1.30pm, local time, where they found several people with injuries including burns.

“The initial callers indicated that there was a man with a weapon and people were being set on fire,” he said.

The suspect – who has not yet been identified – was taken into custody “without incident”, he said.

Footage taken from the scene appears to show a shirtless man holding clear liquids in two bottles yelling at the crowd.

He can be heard screaming “End Zionists!”, “Palestine is Free!” and “They are killers!” towards several people in red T-shirts as they tend to a person lying on the ground.

In other clips, screams of panic can be heard as people tend to what appear to be burn victims.

Buckets and bottles of water were poured on one person who was huddled on the ground.

Other images showed black smoke billowing above a park.

FBI Director Kash Patel took to X to declare the agency was “aware of and fully investigating a targeted terror attack in Boulder, Colorado”.

The local Police Chief Redfearn, however, insisted it was “way too early to speculate” on a motive behind the incident.

“I’ve been in contact with our local FBI multiple times, we are in contact with them here. We are not calling it a terror attack at this point,” he said.

The Anti-Defamation League, a Jewish activist group, said on X that it was “aware of reports of an attack at today’s Boulder Run for Their Lives event”.

That event, it said, was a “weekly meeting of Jewish community members to run/walk in support of the hostages” seized during Hamas’s attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, sparking the war in Gaza.

Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations in New York voiced outrage at the attack.

“Terrorism against Jews does not stop at the Gaza border – it is already burning the streets of America,” he said in a statement.

“Today, in Boulder, Colorado, Jewish people marched with a moral and humane demand: to return the hostages. In response, the Jewish protesters were brutally attacked, with an attacker throwing a molotov cocktails at them,” he said.

“Make no mistake – this is not a political protest, this is terrorism.”

The Boulder incident follows the shooting of two Israeli embassy staffers outside the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington DC last month.