FBI says it stopped a Mall of America terror attack by a teen after agents sold him an assault rifle

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — FBI agents thwarted a terror attack by a teenager on the Mall of America after monitoring him for nearly two years and ultimately supplying him with the assault rifle he planned to use, authorities said Wednesday.

The 18-year-old had been on the FBI's radar since December 2024, when he began trading messages with a confidential informant. A criminal complaint says he initially expressed an interest in traveling overseas to fight for the extremist group al-Shabab. As his plans to instead attack the mall solidified, it says, agents sold him an AK-47 and ammunition on Tuesday and arrested him on the spot.

"This was a radicalized young man who needed to be watched," U.S. Attorney Daniel Rosen 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 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 the rifle and 200 rounds of ammunition, the agency said.

Mohamud appeared in a yellow jail uniform for his initial appearance Wednesday in federal court in St. Paul. He told the judge he did not have a job, own a house or a car, or have any money in the bank. He was represented by Siri Carlson McDowell, a federal public defender. Carlson McDowell and relatives of Mohamud declined to comment after the hearing.

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According to an FBI agent's sworn complaint, Mohamud repeatedly affirmed in chat messages to the informant that he intended to attack and kill non-Muslims at the mall on Oct. 24, the date of a scheduled Hmong arts celebration.

When the informant asked if he was serious about committing the attack, Mohamud replied, "yes i am 100% sure," the complaint said, and added: "I would have backed out by now if I wasn't sure."

Rosen said Mohamud is an American-born U.S. citizen of Somali descent. The agent wrote that Mohamud's messages expressed admiration for recent terror attacks as well as an interest in traveling to Somalia to join ISIS. Ultimately he decided he couldn't afford to travel there and would attack the mall instead, the complaint said.

The teen first came to the FBI's attention in December 2024, the same month the source began exchanging messages with him, the complaint said. By May 2025, agents were concerned enough that they went to his home. His mother told them he wasn't home from school yet and called the boy's father, who declined to speak with them and said he would give their contact information to his lawyer, the complaint said.

"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 radicalized, 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.

Tens of thousands of people of Somali descent live in Minnesota, dating back to when refugees began arriving in the 1990s. Over the years several have been charged with attempting to join ISIS or other terror groups.

Johnson reported from Seattle. Associated Press reporter Philip Marcelo in New York contributed.