The FBI thwarted an attack on the Mall of America by a teenager after agents supplied him with an assault rifle, authorities said Wednesday.
The 18-year-old had been under investigation for nearly two years, trading messages with a confidential informant, before agents sold him the rifle and ammunition and arrested him on the spot, they said.
It was not immediately known if the teen had an attorney who might speak on his behalf. The Associated Press could not immediately identify any of his family members to contact for comment. The 18-year-old had been under investigation for nearly two years, trading messages with a confidential informant, before agents sold him the rifle and ammunition and arrested him on the spot, they 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, 18, was arrested Tuesday in a public park in Richfield, several miles northwest of the Mall of America, after he paid $600 to an undercover FBI employee posing as a member of ISIS for an AK-47 and 200 rounds of ammunition, according to the criminal complaint.
“This was a radicalised young man who needed to be watched,” US Attorney Daniel Rosen said as he praised the FBI investigation. “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 radicalised, 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.
