Sheikhdoon Mohamud charged in alleged Mall of America attack plot

Federal prosecutors charged an 18-year-old Twin Cities man on Oct. 7 with receiving a rifle and ammunition that they say he planned to use to kill between 30 and 60 people at the Mall of America on Oct. 24.

Sheikhdoon Abdullahi Mohamud was arrested at gunpoint on Oct. 6 in the parking lot of a public park in Richfield, Minnesota, moments after paying $600 in cash to an undercover FBI employee posing as a member of ISIS. The rifle and ammunition came from the FBI, according to the criminal complaint filed the next day in U.S. District Court in Minnesota.

What the complaint alleges

Mohamud is charged with one count of knowingly receiving a firearm and ammunition while knowing or having reason to believe they would be used in a felony or a federal crime of terrorism. U.S. Attorney Daniel Rosen and FBI Minneapolis Special Agent in Charge Christopher Dotson announced the case at a news conference in Minneapolis. A charge is an accusation, and Mohamud is presumed innocent.

The complaint identifies the weapon as a Norinco AK-47 assault rifle, model Mac-90 Sporter, handed over in a large duffel bag with four magazines and a container holding about 200 live rounds of 7.62x39-caliber ammunition. Investigators had rendered the rifle inoperable before the exchange, Valley News Live reported.

The FBI opened the investigation in December 2024, the same month Mohamud and a confidential source began exchanging messages about traveling overseas to join ISIS or al-Shabaab, both U.S.-designated foreign terrorist organizations. Over nearly two years the two traded hundreds of messages across multiple social media platforms and encrypted messaging applications, the complaint says.

By July 2026, Mohamud told the source he did not have enough money to travel to Somalia and said he would act in the United States instead. "I will prepare here in America," he wrote. He said that if he carried out an attack it would not be "for any worldly matter" but "for the sake of Allah only."

Mohamud told the source he was considering the Mall of America in Bloomington or Valleyfair amusement park in Shakopee, and wrote that he might buy two pistols online first. One version of the plan put the attack around Christmastime, according to the complaint.

Rosen said Mohamud acted alone and is not gang affiliated, and that he is an American citizen born in the United States. The complaint refers to Somalia as the homeland of his parents.

Nearly two years of messages

The exchanges continued until the day of the arrest. Mohamud said he wanted to travel to Somalia to join al-Shabaab and fight on its behalf, or to carry out a mass casualty attack in Minnesota on the group's behalf, and by December 2025 he had begun expressing interest in supporting ISIS instead. Dotson described the messages at the Oct. 7 news conference.

They document the idolization of ideologically motivated violence, a callous disregard for the sanctity of human life, a blind hatred of people of other faiths and a cold commitment to carrying out his vision of violence in our community.

Mohamud told the source in September that he had been watching video of the 2016 attack on the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida, and thought he could do the same. "I just walk in and shoot," he wrote. He also expressed admiration for the New Orleans New Year's Day attacker.

He wrote that the mall was owned by Jewish people and that killing even 30 there would empty it of shoppers. "I'll just go grab assault rifle, bomb too complicated, kill maybe 30-60 people insha Allah and have 260 ammo," he said in one message quoted in the charges, which also cite the Bondi Beach attack in Sydney, Australia, as an inspiration.

Mohamud told the undercover employee that part of his motivation was that he was "angry at the bad treatment of Muslims" in the wake of the May attack on an Islamic center in San Diego, ABC News reported.

The charges also include messages in which Mohamud discussed killing "kuffar," a term for disbelievers applied to people who are not Muslim. He sent the source a video on Discord pledging allegiance to ISIS and its current leader, and ABC News, citing the filings, reported that prosecutors detailed his hopes of martyrdom.

The Richfield park arrest

In August, Mohamud began arranging a meeting with the source to buy an AK-47 and ammunition, and sent photographs of himself so the source would recognize him. He settled on Oct. 6 for the exchange.

The undercover employee handed Mohamud a duffel bag containing the rifle and ammunition, then told him he was a member of ISIS and asked about his plans. Mohamud again said he intended to shoot people at the mall festival. He was taken into custody at gunpoint as he stepped away from the vehicle.

A Richfield man said he witnessed the arrest while visiting a dog park. "They flew out of their vehicle and one of the FBI agents kicked my door shut," Mike O'Brien told CBS News Minnesota. "I was just trying to go to the dog park." He said he saw a swarm of up to 30 agents take down a suspect.

Dotson said Mohamud was "100-percent committed" to the plot and had wanted to fight in Minnesota because he could not travel abroad for ISIS. The FBI moves to disrupt a threat immediately once it has credible evidence that someone is seeking the means for a violent attack, he said.

The Oct. 24 target date

The Hmong Arts Celebration, set for Oct. 24 at the Mall of America, is in its second year, and organizers describe it as a family-friendly cultural festival. A confidential informant asked Mohamud over a messaging app why he had chosen that date. "Yeah its a bunch of Asians, Chinese, Vietnamese and other non-believers celebrating," he replied, then sent a link to the event.

Reaction, and a 2025 warning

The Mall of America said in a statement that "the safety and security of everyone who visits and works at the Mall of America has always been our highest priority," and that it maintains "multiple layers of security, both visible and behind the scenes."

An organizer of the Hmong Arts Celebration said in a statement that it was "heartbreaking and emotional to hear the news of the alleged planned attack at Mall of America." The organizer thanked the FBI and local law enforcement and said the mall had communicated promptly about security for the Oct. 24 event.

Agents went to Mohamud's house in May 2025, after the FBI was alerted to his sharing of extremist material online. They were told he was still at school. His father told them the family did not want to speak and that they would have to talk to an attorney, according to the complaint. Mohamud had recently turned 17.

Rosen said the FBI had tried to speak with the parents after seeing that the young man was becoming radicalized, and that those attempts were rebuffed. He urged parents in Minnesota and elsewhere to heed such warnings when federal law enforcement comes to them.

Rosen also said authorities did not believe Mohamud's parents understood the extent of his radicalization, which he said progressed until the teenager planned a mass casualty attack in the most serious of ways.

What happens next

Mohamud made his first appearance in federal court in St. Paul on Oct. 7, telling the judge he understood the charge and that he had no job and no money. A woman waiting outside the courtroom told MPR News she was his mother but declined to say more. A preliminary hearing was set for 10 a.m. Oct. 19.

No attack occurred and no one was injured during the investigation, which ran for nearly two years before the arrest in Richfield.