Residents of Rushdie Suspect’s Lebanese Village Say Incident Has Little to Do With Them

A view of the town of Yaroun, southern Lebanon August 15, 2022. (Reuters)
A view of the town of Yaroun, southern Lebanon August 15, 2022. (Reuters)
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Residents of Rushdie Suspect’s Lebanese Village Say Incident Has Little to Do With Them

A view of the town of Yaroun, southern Lebanon August 15, 2022. (Reuters)
A view of the town of Yaroun, southern Lebanon August 15, 2022. (Reuters)

Street-side signs in the southern Lebanese village of Yaroun, the ancestral home of the suspect in the stabbing of Salman Rushdie, bear posters of Iran's former supreme leader Khomeini who in 1989 issued a fatwa calling for the author's death.

The logo of Lebanon's Iran-armed Hezbollah group adorns small monuments to its fighters killed during decades of wars with Israel, which borders Yaroun to the east and south.

The mood in the small Lebanese village is apprehensive.

Few want to speak about Friday's attack on Rushdie or about Hadi Matar, the 24-year-old American suspect whose family originally hails from Yaroun, where Hezbollah has strong support.

Locals say the attack on the novelist at a public appearance in New York state has little to do with them.

"There is no information... He was born abroad in America and remains there," local official Riad al-Ridha told Reuters. "No one wants to talk about it because no one knows anything."

Matar, from New Jersey, has pleaded not guilty to attempted murder and assault. An initial law enforcement review of his social media account showed he was sympathetic to Shiite extremism and Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), according to NBC New York.

The IRGC is a powerful faction that Washington accuses of carrying out a global extremist campaign.

US authorities have not offered any additional details on the investigation, including a possible motive.

Matar's parents emigrated to the United States and he was born and raised there, but his father Hassan Matar returned to Lebanon several years ago, Yaroun Mayor Ali Tehfe told Reuters.

Residents of the village said Matar's parents were divorced and the mother continues to live in the United States.

After the attack, the father locked himself in his home and was refusing to speak to anyone, Tehfe said.

Reuters visited a simple cinder block building where Tehfe said Hassan Matar lived. Two people inside, including a middle-aged man, declined to speak.

Seven people from the town, including four living in the United States and Australia, also declined to speak when asked if they knew Hadi Matar or would condemn his attack, citing the sensitivity of the case and a lack of knowledge on its details.

Rushdie has lived with a bounty on his head since the publication of his 1988 novel "The Satanic Verses," which is viewed by some Muslims as containing blasphemous passages.

Hezbollah, which was founded in 1982 by Iran's Revolutionary Guards and classified by the United States and other Western countries as a terrorist organization, has said it has no information on the attack. Iran's foreign ministry said only Rushdie himself and his supporters were to blame.

Critics of Iran and Hezbollah in Lebanon have condemned the attack even as others close to Hezbollah offer support for Khomeini's 1989 edict - a call previously supported by Hezbollah's leader Hassan Nasrallah.

Journalist Radwan Akil, a writer for Lebanon's Annahar newspaper, said on Sunday that he supported the implementation of Khomeinei's fatwa against Rushdie. The newspaper said in a statement his opinion "is entirely inconsistent with Annahar's policies which calls for fighting words with words".

Former Annahar editor Gebran Tueni and columnist Samir Kassir, both opponents of Hezbollah and of Syria's dominance in Lebanon, were killed in 2005.



What to Know About the Flash Floods in Texas That Killed over 100 People

 Firefighters from Ciudad Acuña, Mexico, transport a recovered body on the flooded Guadalupe River days after a flash flood swept through the area, Monday, July 7, 2025, in Ingram, Texas. (AP)
Firefighters from Ciudad Acuña, Mexico, transport a recovered body on the flooded Guadalupe River days after a flash flood swept through the area, Monday, July 7, 2025, in Ingram, Texas. (AP)
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What to Know About the Flash Floods in Texas That Killed over 100 People

 Firefighters from Ciudad Acuña, Mexico, transport a recovered body on the flooded Guadalupe River days after a flash flood swept through the area, Monday, July 7, 2025, in Ingram, Texas. (AP)
Firefighters from Ciudad Acuña, Mexico, transport a recovered body on the flooded Guadalupe River days after a flash flood swept through the area, Monday, July 7, 2025, in Ingram, Texas. (AP)

Flash floods in Texas killed at least 100 people over the Fourth of July holiday weekend and left others still missing, including girls attending a summer camp. The devastation along the Guadalupe River, outside of San Antonio, has drawn a massive search effort as officials face questions over their preparedness and the speed of their initial actions.

Here's what to know about the deadly flooding, the colossal weather system that drove it in and around Kerr County, Texas, and ongoing efforts to identify victims.

Massive rain hit at just the wrong time, in a flood-prone place

The floods grew to their worst at the midpoint of a long holiday weekend when many people were asleep.

The Texas Hill Country in the central part of the state is naturally prone to flash flooding due to the dry dirt-packed areas where the soil lets rain skid along the surface of the landscape instead of soaking it up. Friday's flash floods started with a particularly bad storm that dropped most of its 12 inches (30 centimeters) of rain in the dark early morning hours.

After a flood watch notice midday Thursday, the National Weather Service office issued an urgent warning around 4 a.m. that raised the potential of catastrophic damage and a severe threat to human life. By at least 5:20 a.m., some in the Kerrville City area say water levels were getting alarmingly high. The massive rain flowing down hills sent rushing water into the Guadalupe River, causing it to rise 26 feet (8 meters) in just 45 minutes.

Death toll is expected to rise and the number of missing is uncertain

In Kerr County, home to youth camps in the Texas Hill Country, searchers have found the bodies of 75 people, including 27 children, Sheriff Larry Leitha said Monday morning. Fatalities in nearby counties brought the total number of deaths to 94 as of Monday afternoon.

Ten girls and a counselor were still unaccounted for at Camp Mystic, a Christian summer camp along the river.

For past campers, the tragedy turned happy memories into grief.

Beyond the Camp Mystic campers unaccounted for, the number of missing from other nearby campgrounds and across the region had not been released.

Gov. Greg Abbott on Sunday had said that there were 41 people confirmed to be unaccounted for across the state and more could be missing.

Kerrville City Manager Dalton Rice said during a Monday news conference he couldn't give an estimate of the number of people still missing, only saying “it is a lot.”

Officials face scrutiny over flash flood warnings

Survivors have described the floods as a “pitch black wall of death” and said they received no emergency warnings.

Kerr County Judge Rob Kelly, who lives along the Guadalupe River, said Saturday that “nobody saw this coming.” Officials have referred to it as a “100-year-flood,” meaning that the water levels were highly unlikely based on the historical record.

And records behind those statistics don’t always account for human-caused climate change. Though it’s hard to connect specific storms to a warming planet so soon after they occur, meteorologists say that a warmer atmosphere can hold more moisture and allow severe storms to dump even more rain.

Additionally, officials have come under scrutiny about why residents and youth summer camps along the river were not alerted sooner than 4 a.m. or told to evacuate.

Rice said Monday that he did not immediately know if there had been any communication between law enforcement and the summer camps between 1 a.m. and 4 a.m. on Friday. But Rice said various factors, including spotty cell service in some of the more isolated areas of Kerr County and cell towers that might have gone out of service during the weather, could have hindered communication.

Rice said officials want to finish the search and rescue and then review possible issues with cell towers, radios and emergency alerts.

Officials noted that the public can grow weary from too many flooding alerts or forecasts that turn out to be minor.

Kerr county officials said they had presented a proposal for a more robust flood warning system, similar to a tornado warning system, but that members of the public reeled at the cost.

Monumental clearing and rebuilding effort

The flash floods have erased campgrounds and torn homes from their foundations.

"It’s going to be a long time before we’re ever able to clean it up, much less rebuild it," Kelly said Saturday after surveying the destruction from a helicopter.

Other massive flooding events have driven residents and business owners to give up, including in areas struck last year by Hurricane Helene.

President Donald Trump said he would likely visit the flood zone on Friday.

AP photographers have captured the scale of the destruction, and one of Texas' largest rescue and recovery efforts.