FBI Arrests Minnesota Man Accused of Plotting ISIS-Inspired Shooting at Mall of America

Federal prosecutors on Wednesday, Oct. 7, charged an 18-year-old Richfield, Minnesota, man with obtaining a rifle and ammunition to carry out a mass shooting at the Mall of America in support of the Islamic State group.

Sheikhdoon Abdullahi Mohamud, a U.S. citizen, is charged by complaint with one count of knowingly receiving a firearm and ammunition in order to commit a federal crime of terrorism, the Justice Department said. The FBI arrested him Tuesday, Oct. 6, and he made his first court appearance Wednesday before U.S. Magistrate Judge Elizabeth Cowan Wright.

The arrest closed a sale the FBI arranged. An undercover FBI employee sold Mohamud an AK-47 rifle, four 30-round magazines and about 200 rounds of ammunition for about $600 in cash. The bureau had rendered the rifle inert beforehand. Agents arrested him in the parking lot of a Richfield park after he left the undercover employee's vehicle with the weapon. During the sale, Mohamud again said he planned to shoot people at the mall, prosecutors said.

The complaint says Mohamud began exchanging hundreds of messages with an FBI confidential source in December 2024. He first spoke of traveling to Somalia to fight for al-Shabaab and said he would attack in Minnesota if he could not afford the trip. In July 2026, he wrote that he wanted to attack the mall because he claimed it was owned by Jews, and that he wanted to kill 30 to 60 people. He later chose Oct. 24, the date of a Hmong Arts Celebration at the mall, and sent the source a selfie-style video pledging allegiance to ISIS. He named the Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando, the Bondi Beach shooting in Australia and the 2025 New Year's Day vehicle attack in New Orleans as attacks he wanted to copy.

U.S. Attorney Daniel Rosen said agents were able to "detect a threat and disrupt it before the defendant carried out his intention to kill, in his words, maybe 30 to 60 people."

The complaint says FBI agents tried to talk with Mohamud's parents in May 2025 and the parents did not cooperate. Rosen urged parents who receive such a warning from federal agents to take it seriously.

"The messages this defendant allegedly sent to others were chilling," said Christopher Dotson, special agent in charge of the FBI's Minneapolis field office.

FBI Director Kash Patel said in the department's announcement that agents in Minneapolis "likely saved lives."

A complaint is an allegation, and Mohamud is presumed innocent unless proven guilty.