By MES Dispatch Staff
The Briefing
- Federal authorities arrested Sheikhdoon Abdullahi Mohamud, 18, of the Twin Cities on Tuesday, and the Minnesota U.S. Attorney’s Office announced an indictment Wednesday charging him with obtaining a firearm to carry out an act of terrorism.
- Prosecutors allege Mohamud planned a mass casualty attack at the Mall of America on Oct. 24, during a festival at the mall.
- The FBI arrested him in a Richfield parking lot after he bought an AK-47 rifle, four magazines and 200 rounds of ammunition for $600 from an undercover officer he believed was an ISIS member.
- The charges stem from a nearly two-year investigation that, according to the indictment, relied on online communications with a confidential source dating to December 2024.
- Mohamud made his initial appearance Wednesday in St. Paul federal court and was ordered held; a detention hearing is set for Oct. 19. He is presumed innocent unless proven guilty.
ST. PAUL, Minn. — Federal prosecutors announced an indictment Wednesday against an 18-year-old Twin Cities man accused of planning a mass casualty attack at the Mall of America later this month, following a terrorism investigation that began nearly two years ago.
Sheikhdoon Abdullahi Mohamud was arrested Tuesday by the FBI in a parking lot in Richfield after purchasing an AK-47 rifle, four magazines and 200 rounds of ammunition for $600 from an undercover officer he believed to be a member of ISIS, authorities said. He is charged with one count of obtaining a firearm to carry out an act of terrorism.
According to the indictment, Mohamud first expressed a desire to travel overseas and fight for terrorist organizations in online conversations with a confidential source beginning in December 2024. When he could not fund the travel, prosecutors allege, he turned to planning an attack in Minnesota, discussing the Mall of America and, separately, Valley Fair as possible targets. The indictment says he pledged allegiance to ISIS in a recorded video and told the source he intended to carry out the attack Oct. 24, during a festival at the mall.
“Mohamud allegedly sought martyrdom in carrying out his plans to murder innocent civilians,” FBI Minneapolis Field Office Special Agent in Charge Christopher D. Dotson said at a news conference Wednesday. U.S. Attorney Daniel Rosen said the case shows the threat of terrorism in support of ISIS and other foreign terrorist groups “is active and continuing.”
Mohamud appeared before Magistrate Judge Elizabeth Cowan Wright on Wednesday afternoon, was appointed a federal defender and was ordered to remain in custody pending an Oct. 19 detention hearing. Court documents indicate FBI agents tried to interview him in May 2025, but his father declined to provide information on his behalf.
In a statement, the Mall of America said it understands the news is “unsettling and concerning” and thanked the FBI and its law enforcement partners for their work, adding that it maintains multiple layers of visible and behind-the-scenes security.
Seamus Hughes, a senior researcher at the National Counterterrorism Innovation, Technology, and Education Center at the University of Nebraska at Omaha, said the case follows patterns seen in other prosecutions, including a young suspect active in online chat rooms who shifts between plans to travel abroad and plans to attack at home. The center’s database shows 282 people, including Mohamud, have been federally charged in ISIS-related cases since the group was designated a foreign terrorist organization in 2014.