On Third Anniversary of October 7, FBI Foils ISIS-Inspired Mass Shooting Plot at Mall of America, Somalian Teen Targeted Mall Over Jewish Ownership Belief

Three years to the day after Hamas carried out the October 7 massacre in Israel, federal authorities announced the arrest of an 18-year-old Somali-American accused of plotting a mass-casualty terrorist attack at Minnesota’s Mall of America.

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According to U.S. Attorney for Minnesota Dan Rosen, Sheikhdoon Abdullahi Mohamud was arrested by the FBI on charges stemming from an alleged plot to carry out a mass shooting in support of ISIS.

Investigators say Mohamud specifically selected the mall because he believed it was Jewish-owned and allegedly hoped to murder between 30 and 60 innocent shoppers.

The teenager allegedly planned to strike on October 24, targeting a crowded public gathering.

But the FBI was already watching.

On October 6, an undercover agent posing as an ISIS operative allegedly sold Mohamud a disabled AK-47 rifle, ammunition and magazines. Federal agents arrested him immediately afterward.

Authorities say the investigation began nearly two years earlier, when Mohamud was just 16.

The timing of the announcement was particularly chilling: October 7, exactly three years after Hamas terrorists murdered approximately 1,200 people in Israel.

From the communities attacked in Israel to a shopping mall in Minnesota, the case highlights the continuing threat of extremist violence and antisemitism.

Mohamud has been charged, not convicted, and the allegations remain to be proven in court.

The massive shopping complex is owned by Triple Five Group, controlled by the Ghermezian family, Jewish entrepreneurs originally from Iran who built one of North America’s largest shopping mall empires. What began as a remarkable immigrant success story allegedly became the very reason an ISIS-inspired teenager wanted to turn the mall into a scene of mass murder.