MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — A teenager’s alleged plan to carry out an ISIS-inspired mass shooting at the Mall of America was stopped by the FBI after nearly two years of monitoring, authorities said Wednesday, with undercover agents ultimately providing the AK-47 and ammunition he intended to use.
The 18-year-old first drew the FBI’s attention in December 2024, when he began communicating with a confidential informant. According to a criminal complaint, he initially discussed traveling to Somalia to fight with al-Shabab militants. But after turning his focus to an attack at the mall, he allegedly bought the rifle and ammunition from undercover agents Tuesday and was arrested immediately afterward.
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“This was a radicalized young man who needed to be watched,” 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.”
Sheikhdoon Abdullahi Mohamud was arrested in a public park in Richfield, several miles northwest of the Mall of America. The FBI said he paid $600 to an undercover employee posing as a member of the Islamic State group for an AK-47 and 200 rounds of ammunition.
Mohamud appeared Wednesday in federal court in St. Paul wearing a yellow jail uniform for his initial hearing. He told the judge that he had no job, house or car and no money in a bank account. Siri Carlson McDowell, a federal public defender, represented him. Carlson McDowell and Mohamud’s relatives declined to comment after the hearing.
Rosen said Mohamud is an American-born U.S. citizen of Somali descent.
In a sworn complaint, an FBI agent said Mohamud repeatedly told the informant through chat messages that he planned to attack and kill non-Muslims at the mall on Oct. 24. That date coincides with a scheduled arts celebration organized by Minnesota’s Hmong community, the state’s largest Asian ethnic group.
When the informant questioned whether he truly intended to carry out the attack, Mohamud responded, “yes i am 100% sure,” according to the complaint. He added: “I would have backed out by now if I wasn’t sure.”
The agent said Mohamud’s messages showed admiration for recent terrorist attacks and described his interest in traveling to Somalia to fight, eventually for the Islamic State group. The complaint says he abandoned that plan after deciding he could not afford the trip and instead chose the mall as his target.
Mohamud came to the FBI’s attention in December 2024, the same month he began exchanging messages with the source, the complaint said. By May 2025, agents had become concerned enough to visit his home. His mother told them he had not yet returned from school and called his father, who refused to speak with agents and said he would provide their contact information to his lawyer, according to the complaint.
“What I would say to parents all over Minnesota, and all over America: If you get any indication — especially if you hear from federal law enforcement — that your son or daughter is being radicalized, to the point where federal law enforcement wants to come and give you that warning, those are warnings that ought to be heeded,” Rosen said.
Minnesota is home to tens of thousands of people of Somali descent, many of whose families arrived after refugees began settling in the state during the 1990s. Several people from the community have been charged over the years with trying to join militant groups.
