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An 18-year-old Minnesota man allegedly planned to slaughter shoppers at Mall of America in an ISIS-inspired attack, telling a confidential source he hoped to kill “maybe 30 to 60 people.” Federal agents arrested him Tuesday after he purchased a rifle and ammunition from an undercover FBI employee he believed belonged to the terrorist organization.
Sheikhdoon Abdullahi Mohamud, a U.S. citizen of Somali descent, paid $600 for an AK-47-style rifle, four magazines and about 200 rounds of ammunition, according to a criminal complaint unsealed Wednesday, according to a report by CBS News. Agents took him into custody at gunpoint in a Richfield park after he stepped out of the undercover employee’s vehicle with the weapons package.
Prosecutors say Mohamud had selected the mall’s Hmong Arts Celebration on Oct. 24 as his target, telling the source “it will be a lot of people.” His alleged motivation included antisemitism: The complaint says he wanted to attack the mall in part “because it’s owned by Jewish.”
“They were able to detect a threat and disrupt it before the defendant carried out his intention to kill,” Minnesota U.S. Attorney Daniel Rosen said. FBI Minneapolis Special Agent in Charge Christopher Dotson described Mohamud’s messages as “chilling,” citing their “idolization of ideologically motivated violence,” “a blind hatred of people of other faiths,” and “a cold commitment to carrying out his vision of violence.”
The alleged plot developed over months of conversations with a confidential source, who exchanged hundreds of messages with Mohamud on social media and encrypted applications beginning in December 2024. According to prosecutors, Mohamud initially discussed traveling to Somalia to join al-Shabaab and fight, while also considering a mass-casualty attack in Minnesota.
By July, he allegedly said he lacked the money to travel overseas and would strike inside the United States instead, “for the sake of Allah only.” Investigators say he considered both Mall of America and the Valleyfair amusement park before settling on the mall celebration.
The complaint describes an interest in previous atrocities, including last year’s antisemitic attack at Bondi Beach in Sydney and footage of the 2016 Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando. “I just walk in and shoot,” Mohamud allegedly wrote. Court documents say he also sent the source a Discord video pledging allegiance to ISIS.
Federal agents had approached Mohamud’s parents in May 2025 after identifying signs of radicalization, Rosen said, but “those attempts were rebuffed.” He urged other parents contacted by investigators about similar concerns to “heed those warnings.”
The case adds a domestic radicalization threat to an already contentious national debate over terrorist infiltration. In 2024, House Homeland Security Committee Republicans demanded answers after eight Tajik nationals with suspected ISIS ties were arrested following their entry through the southern border. Lawmakers also cited the identification of more than 400 migrants brought into the country through an ISIS-affiliated smuggling network; that finding did not establish that all those migrants were terrorists.
Mohamud’s case involves a different alleged route to violence: a second-generation American citizen accused of embracing jihadist ideology and preparing to attack a crowded public gathering. In France, a similar problem has engulfed Paris in violence.
BREAKING:
Young second and third-generation migrants continue to attack schools in France.
They are now trying to burn down the Léonard de Vinci high school in Roubaix pic.twitter.com/ePrf1bpUoA
— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) September 30, 2026
The arrest also came amid separate shootings in the Twin Cities area that police have attributed to Somali American gangs, prompting local law enforcement leaders to call for a regional gang task force. Authorities have not connected those incidents to Mohamud’s alleged terrorism plot.
Mohamud faces a federal charge of receiving a firearm and ammunition while knowing, or having reasonable cause to believe, they would be used to commit a felony and a federal crime of terrorism. It was not immediately clear whether he had an attorney.
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