FBI Says It Foiled Mall of America Mass-Shooting Plot

Federal prosecutors have charged an 18-year-old Minnesota man with plotting a mass-casualty shooting at the Mall of America, saying FBI agents spent nearly two years building the case before arresting him this week in a sting that ended with undercover agents selling him a disabled assault rifle. According to a Justice Department announcement, Sheikhdoon Abdullahi Mohamud, an American-born U.S. citizen living in Richfield, had settled on Oct. 24 — the date of an arts festival at the Bloomington mall — as the day he intended to open fire on shoppers.

Mohamud made his initial court appearance Wednesday in St. Paul before U.S. Magistrate Judge Elizabeth Cowan Wright and was assigned a federal public defender. He faces a single count, filed by criminal complaint rather than grand jury indictment, of knowingly receiving a firearm and ammunition with reason to believe they would be used to commit a felony and a federal crime of terrorism. A complaint is only an accusation, and he is presumed innocent unless convicted.

• 18 years old, a U.S. citizen living in Richfield, a Minneapolis suburb
• One federal count, filed by criminal complaint on Oct. 7
• $600 in cash paid for an AK-47-style rifle, four magazines and roughly 200 rounds of ammunition — all supplied, and rendered inoperable, by the FBI
• About 22 months of contact with an FBI confidential source, beginning in December 2024
• Up to 60 people — the toll prosecutors say Mohamud told the source he hoped to reach

An Online Relationship That Turned Toward Violence

The case began in December 2024, when a confidential FBI source started exchanging messages with Mohamud over social media and messaging apps, according to the Justice Department and court filings described in subsequent reporting. He initially talked about traveling to Somalia to fight alongside al-Shabab, the al-Qaida-linked militant group. In May 2025, agents visited his family's home; his mother said he was still at school and his father declined to speak with them.

By this summer, according to the charging documents, Mohamud told the source he could not afford the trip overseas and would instead carry out an attack inside the United States. Over the following months he discussed targets, including the Mall of America, sent a video pledging allegiance to the Islamic State group and said he had settled on the Oct. 24 festival date because of the crowds it would draw. On Oct. 6, the source arranged for him to buy a rifle from a purported ISIS-linked supplier who was, in fact, an undercover FBI employee. Mohamud paid $600 in a Richfield park parking lot and was arrested on the spot after taking possession of the inert weapon and live ammunition.

A State With a Recurring Problem

The case lands in a state that has repeatedly confronted efforts by foreign terrorist groups to recruit young Somali-American men, a community that has deep roots in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area. Minnesota prosecutors have brought a string of terrorism-support cases tied to al-Shabab and the Islamic State group over the past 15 years, and the Mall of America itself has drawn previous threats: a 2015 video attributed to al-Shabab named the mall as a potential target, though authorities said at the time they had found no credible plot, and a Minneapolis man described by prosecutors as inspired by the Islamic State group stabbed two people inside the mall in 2017.

Mohamud's case, officials said, was not a response to any outside threat but the product of sustained individual radicalization tracked almost entirely online. A local station's reporting on the case described hundreds of messages exchanged between Mohamud and the informant over nearly two years, culminating in a video in which he pledged loyalty to the group's leader.

Who Was in the Plot's Path

The Mall of America is one of the largest shopping and entertainment complexes in the country, drawing visitors from across the region and hosting an amusement park, an aquarium and regular cultural festivals inside its enclosed rotunda. The event Mohamud is accused of targeting was a Pan-Asian arts celebration that draws Hmong and other Southeast Asian families from across the Twin Cities. Mall management did not issue a public statement Wednesday, and neither national coverage of the arrest nor local outlets reported any immediate change to mall security or hours.

U.S. Attorney Daniel Rosen also directed a message to parents, saying federal warnings about radicalization "ought to be heeded," a remark aimed broadly at families across Minnesota rather than any single community.

Officials Respond, Case Moves to Court

FBI Director Kash Patel credited the Minneapolis field office, saying in the U.S. Attorney's Office statement on the charges that agents "put a stop to his plans" before anyone was hurt. John A. Eisenberg, the Justice Department's assistant attorney general for national security, said Mohamud "allegedly sought to carry out a mass-casualty shooting at the Mall of America, expressing a desire to emulate some of the most horrific ISIS-inspired attacks in the United States."

"As alleged in the criminal complaint, Mohamud took substantial steps to plot to murder innocent people in the name of ISIS. Such threats are taken seriously, and I commend the committed public servants of the Joint Terrorism Task Force, the FBI, and my office, who work every day to stop them."

The quote is from Rosen, the U.S. Attorney for the District of Minnesota. The case is being handled jointly by the FBI's Minneapolis Joint Terrorism Task Force, the Bloomington Police Department and IRS Criminal Investigation, with a trial attorney from the Justice Department's National Security Division and an assistant U.S. attorney in Minnesota prosecuting.

A charge brought by complaint typically moves toward a grand jury indictment within weeks, along with a detention hearing to determine whether Mohamud is held pending trial; no trial date has been set. He remains in federal custody following his initial appearance, represented by a federal public defender. The Oct. 24 date prosecutors say he had chosen for the attack is now two and a half weeks away, and it is unclear what, if any, additional security measures the mall or event organizers plan for that day.