By Sarah Nelson and Jeff Day
The Minnesota Star Tribune
ST. PAUL, Minn. — A terrorism investigation has yielded an indictment against a Somali man from the Twin Cities accused of planning a mass casualty event at the Mall of America later this month, the Minnesota U.S. Attorney’s Office announced on Wednesday.
Federal authorities on Tuesday arrested Sheikhdoon Abdullahi Mohamud, 18, on one count of obtaining a firearm to carry out an act of terrorism. The indictment stems from a nearly two-year investigation that revealed Mohamud expressed intent to join and fight for terrorist organizations overseas but eventually turned to planning a terrorist-inspired attack in Minnesota when those plans failed.
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“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.
Mohamud was arrested on Tuesday by the FBI in a Richfield parking lot after purchasing an AK-47 rifle, four magazines and 200 rounds of ammunition for $600 from an undercover officer whom he thought was a member of ISIS.
He made his initial appearance on Wednesday afternoon in St. Paul federal court before Magistrate Judge Elizabeth Cowan Wright. He was appointed a federal defender and ordered to remain jailed ahead of an Oct. 19 detention hearing where a judge will determine his custody status ahead of trial.
U.S. Attorney Daniel Rosen said the charges “demonstrate that the threat of terrorism in support to ISIS and other foreign terrorist organizations is active and continuing.”
In a statement, the Mall of America said it “understands today’s news is unsettling and concerning for our guests, tenants, team members and the broader community.” The mall thanked the FBI and law enforcement partners for “their vigilance and extraordinary investigative work” in the case and added that it also maintains “multiple layers of security both visible and behind the scenes.”
The indictment largely focuses on Mohamud’s conversations with a person identified as a confidential source through various online platforms stretching back to December 2024. Mohamud frequently expressed his desire to travel and fight on behalf of the terrorist group on the platform, according to the charges.
“I wanna get martyred inshallah,” one of his messages said to a confidential informant.
“That’s why I wanna save up to go to another country or…get a gun here and just start killing a bunch of white ppl.”
In May of 2025, FBI agents attempted to interview Mohamud but his father told them he did not want to share “any information pertaining to himself or his son” with the FBI but would give their phone number to his attorney.
The terrorism charges come amid renewed concerns over gang violence in the Twin Cities between rival factions in the Somali community. Two recent shootings involving Somali teens as victims or suspects have left some in law enforcement calling for a regional task force to address gang activity while cautioning that the violence is stemming from a small number of people in the community.
One of the shootings at Eden Prairie High School’s homecoming football game forced the evacuation of athletes and fans. The other gang-related shooting in Bloomington resulted in more than 100 rounds fired along a residential street.
The indictment said Mohamud told the confidential source that he didn’t have enough money to travel to Somalia, and eventually started to discuss purchasing a firearm to carry out an attack at various locations in the Twin Cities, with a focus on the Mall of America “because it’s owned by jewish (sic) so if i kill even 30 people noone would go there anymore.” He also referenced carrying out a shooting at Valley Fair around Christmas time.
The indictment includes a screen shot of a message allegedly sent by Mohamud which says that “if i do an attack here im not doing it for any worldly matters im doing for the sake of Allah only.”
He then messaged, “don’t tell anyone this.”
Those plans turned into an agreement to purchase a firearm, the indictment said. By that point, Mohamud had pledged allegiance to ISIS through a selfie-style video, investigators said. Mohamud messaged the informant that he intended to carry out an attack on Oct. 24 during a festival at the Mall of America and sent a link to the Hmong Arts Celebration.
The indictment details how Mohamud allegedly pursued his attack, communicating over social media apps like TikTok, Telegram and Discord about whether to join the terrorist group Al-Shabaab or ISIS, he also showed growing exasperation with the direction of his life in America.
He wrote to the informant on Discord that he wasn’t doing well in school and, in March of this year, told the informant he planned to buy a “cheap BB gun” to train.
Mohamud wrote that his sister told him it was suspicious that he was planning to go to Africa and buying a fake gun. He told his sister that he had quit school and would be homeless in America in a few years since “houses and apartments are so expensive.”
The National Counterterrorism Innovation, Technology, and Education Center (NCITE) out of the University of Nebraska at Omaha keeps a database on federal charges for terrorism. Including Mohamud, 282 people have been charged for ISIS-related activity since 2014, when it was designated a foreign terrorist organization by the State Department.
Seamus Hughes, a senior research faculty at NCITE, said terrorism cases have leveled off in the last few years and are, typically, much more labor intensive for law enforcement. Suspects can be under 18, “which raises a whole host of issues,” and an informant is often needed because their overseas destination can oscillate.
He said the indictment against Mohamud “hits a lot of the normal trendlines we have seen in other cases.”
“A young man, terminally online, a lot of chat rooms, vacillates between wanting to travel overseas and join the fight to planning an attack here,” Hughes said.
The charges recall similar counterterrorism investigations from more than a decade ago when a wave of Somali-Americans from Minnesota faced charges for leaving the United States to fight alongside Islamic extremist groups. One major counterterrorism investigation in 2015 led to indictments against 11 Minnesotans charged in a conspiracy to provide material support to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. Prior to those, the Justice Department brought similar terrorism charges following an investigation into the disappearance of up to 20 local men who left the Minneapolis area and traveled to Somalia to train or fight with terrorist group al-Shabaab.
The Justice Department is currently seeking to revoke the U.S. citizenship of one of the men who pleaded guilty to providing support to the terrorist organization al-Shabaab more than 20 years ago. The denaturalization case remains pending in federal court.
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