Sheikhdoon Abdullahi Mohamud, an 18-year-old American-born US citizen of Somali descent from the Twin Cities, stepped from a vehicle at a public park in Richfield, Minnesota, on Tuesday and was taken into custody at gunpoint by FBI agents. The park was several miles northwest of the Mall of America.
Authorities say the meeting on 6 October was the final stage of an undercover operation aimed at stopping an alleged ISIS-inspired attack at the shopping mall. Mohamud had paid $600 to an undercover FBI employee posing as an ISIS member for an AK-47 and 200 rounds of ammunition, prosecutors said.
During the meeting, the undercover agent gave him a large duffel bag containing an AK-47 rifle and four magazines, along with a container holding 200 rounds of ammunition. Mohamud was arrested after receiving the weapons and ammunition, authorities said.
Mohamud has been charged with knowingly receiving firearms and ammunition while pledging allegiance to ISIS. The charge is an allegation, and federal prosecutors must prove it in court.
The investigation had begun in December 2024, when Mohamud first came to the FBI's attention. A confidential FBI source began exchanging messages with him that month about travelling to Somalia to fight for al-Shabaab or carrying out a mass-casualty attack on US soil.
By May 2025, agents went to Mohamud's home after being alerted that he had shared extremist material online. His parents rebuffed their attempt to speak with them.
By December 2025, Mohamud had expressed interest in supporting ISIS. In text messages, he expressed admiration for recent terror attacks and an interest in travelling to Somalia to join ISIS, authorities said.
Investigators also say Mohamud wrote that he was angry at the treatment of Muslims after an attack on an Islamic Center in San Diego. In separate communications, he allegedly discussed getting a “gun here and just start killing a bunch of white ppl.”
Prosecutors say he later decided he could not afford to travel to Somalia and would attack the mall instead. They say he repeatedly affirmed an intention to kill non-Muslims at the Mall of America on 24 October, when a Hmong Arts Celebration was scheduled there.
Mohamud told the source he wanted to attack the mall because he believed it was owned by Jewish people. He said, “so if I kill even 30 people noone would go there anymore.”
Daniel Rosen, the US Attorney for Minnesota, said Mohamud had stated that he wanted to kill “maybe 30 to 60 people.” Rosen said authorities “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.”
Mohamud appeared in federal court in St. Paul on Wednesday wearing a yellow jail uniform for his initial hearing. Rosen and Christopher Dotson, the FBI Minneapolis Special Agent in Charge, discussed the case at a news conference that day.
The charges were announced on 7 October 2026.
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