F.B.I. says an 18-year-old planned to kill 30 at the Mall of America on Oct. 24. He bought the rifle from an agent
The U.S. Attorney's Office in Minnesota and the F.B.I. announced Wednesday the arrest of Sheikhdoon Abdullahi Mohamud, 18, on one federal count of receiving a firearm and ammunition knowing or having reason to believe they would be used in a felony or federal crime of terrorism. According to the complaint as described by prosecutors and reported by Fox News, ABC, Newsweek and others, a confidential F.B.I. source began exchanging hundreds of messages with him on social media and encrypted apps in December 2024. He first talked of traveling to Somalia to join al-Shabaab; when he could not raise the money, he allegedly turned to an attack in the U.S., telling the source he wanted to kill at least 30 people at the Mall of America in Bloomington during the Hmong Arts Celebration on Oct. 24, singling out Asian people and other non-Muslims. On Tuesday he met an undercover F.B.I. employee posing as an ISIS associate, paid $600 in cash for an AK-47-style rifle, several magazines and about 200 rounds, and was arrested; accounts place the meeting in Richfield or at a public park. The rifle had been rendered inoperable. He is held at the Sherburne County Jail pending a court appearance. No one was hurt. Sen. Amy Klobuchar called for larger counterterrorism investments.
It is the kind of case the F.B.I. has built for twenty years: a long online relationship with an informant, a weapon supplied by the government, an arrest before anything happens. Those cases almost always end in conviction, and they almost always raise the same question, how much of the plot existed before the informant arrived. The target, a specific cultural festival with a named date, is what makes this one feel less abstract.
The Mall of America is open and the festival is Oct. 24; the alleged plan was never operational and the only gun involved could not fire. If you have teenagers, the complaint's description of a two-year online path from a Somali militia to a Minnesota mall is the part worth reading.
Twenty-two months of monitoring, a specific target and date, cash for a rifle. This is what prevention looks like, and the alternative is reading about it on Oct. 25.
An 18-year-old who could not afford a plane ticket was sold a disabled rifle by the government after two years of conversation with its informant. The charge is receiving a firearm, not attempting an attack; that gap is where the defense will live.
The detention hearing will show whether prosecutors have more than the informant's chat logs: a manifesto, surveillance of the mall, a pledge video. If they do, the sting critique fades. If they do not, expect it to be loud. Either way, keep the words 'alleged' and 'inoperable' attached to this story.
DailyDrop U.S. No. 3 · October 7, 2026