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Mall of America terror plot foiled · DEEP INSIGHT

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  Speaker 1: A foiled terrorist plot in Minnesota. Federal officials have charged
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  Speaker 1: a man accused of planning to carry out a mass
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  Speaker 1: shooting at the Mall of America in Minnesota, according to
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  Speaker 1: court filings. A two-year FBI investigation found that 18-year-old Sheikh
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  Speaker 1: Dun Abdallahie Mahmoud received an AK-47 assault rifle and about
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  Speaker 1: 200 rounds of ammo to carry out a mass casualty attack.
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  Speaker 1: According to the criminal complaint, the 18-year-old wanted to target
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  Speaker 1: the Mall of America because, quote, It's owned by Jewish.
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  Speaker 1: So if I kill even 30 people, no one would
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  Speaker 1: go there anymore, he continued. I want to harm the Jew,
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  Speaker 1: just like the brothers in Australia, Bondi Beach, harmed the Jews, unquote.
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  Speaker 1: Let's bring in CNN's Whitney Wilde and John Miller for
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  Speaker 1: more on this. Whitney, we heard from federal officials in
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  Speaker 1: Minnesota today. What are they saying?
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  Speaker 2: Well, they're detailing this, again, two-year investigation that you pointed out,
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  Speaker 2: where the bulk of the evidence here is really based
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  Speaker 2: on his own text messages and social media messages that
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  Speaker 2: he was exchanging with a confidential informant. Over that nearly
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  Speaker 2: two-year period, they say he exchanged... hundreds of messages, and
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  Speaker 2: some of them are detailed in this affidavit. And what
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  Speaker 2: they really show is that he had for several months
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  Speaker 2: had hoped and had planned to join a foreign terrorist organization.
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  Speaker 2: His main hope was to go to Somalia and join
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  Speaker 2: a foreign terrorist organization. But then when he figured out
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  Speaker 2: that he wouldn't be able to afford that, he decided
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  Speaker 2: to commit that terrorist attack here.
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  Speaker 3: And in the court.
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  Speaker 2: Records, you can see that he's trying to basically figure
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  Speaker 2: out which terrorist organization to join. He eventually settles on ISIS,
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  Speaker 2: according to this affidavit. And then once he has decided
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  Speaker 2: to carry out the attack here in Minnesota, you can
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  Speaker 2: also see, according to the messages, again, according to this
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  Speaker 2: FBI affidavit, how he had planned to do it. So
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  Speaker 2: the plan was he was going to get an AK-47,
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  Speaker 2: hundreds of rounds of ammunition, go to Mall of America,
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  Speaker 2: where he had hoped— to kill between 30 and 60 people, Jake.
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  Speaker 2: Here's more from the FBI. Officials at this press conference
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  Speaker 2: today where they were describing what happened were absolutely stunned
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  Speaker 2: by what they saw. Here's more from the FBI.
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  Speaker 4: The messages this defendant allegedly sent to others were chilling.
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  Speaker 4: They document the idolization of ideologically motivated violence, a callous
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  Speaker 4: disregard for the sanctity of human life, a blind hatred
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  Speaker 4: of of people of other faiths and a cold commitment
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  Speaker 4: to carrying out his vision of violence in our community.
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  Speaker 4: According to court documents, Mohammed pledged his allegiance to ISIS
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  Speaker 4: leaders and claimed to have joined ISIS over a year ago.
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  Speaker 4: Mohammed allegedly sought martyrdom in carrying out his plans to
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  Speaker 4: murder innocent civilians.
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  Speaker 2: Jake, the court records show that he is going to
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  Speaker 2: remain in custody. We've also reached out to his federal defender.
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  Speaker 4: Jake?
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  Speaker 5: And John, what are.
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  Speaker 1: You hearing from your FBI sources on this matter? How
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  Speaker 1: serious was this? How much was he directed or inspired
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  Speaker 1: by a terrorist group abroad?
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  Speaker 6: Well, he was picked up within the chat rooms where
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  Speaker 6: groups like that recruit and was allegedly talking about going
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  Speaker 6: to join a group overseas in Somalia to martyr themselves.
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  Speaker 6: That's what put him on the radar. But you've got
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  Speaker 6: to remember, Jake, this starts 21 months ago. So he's
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  Speaker 6: 16 or 17 years old. Very hard to prosecute for
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  Speaker 6: the feds. But then he turns 18. And at the
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  Speaker 6: time he's turning 18, this has accelerated to, I want
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  Speaker 6: to buy the AK-47, allegedly for $ 600. 00. I need four magazines,
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  Speaker 6: 200 rounds of ammunition, and I'm going to strike on
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  Speaker 6: October 24th. So, you know, take a look at the calendar.
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  Speaker 6: That date was coming up. He had made the plan,
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  Speaker 6: purchased the weapon, ammunition, chosen the target. This was extraordinarily
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  Speaker 6: close to happening. Now, the good part is, with the
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  Speaker 6: FBI operation built around it, there were a lot of
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  Speaker 6: controlling features to make sure that didn't occur. But... You know,
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  Speaker 6: as Whitney pointed out, if you read the transcripts, an
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  Speaker 6: entrapment argument is going to be very hard, given at
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  Speaker 6: least by what's contained in the complaint, his level of
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  Speaker 6: enthusiasm about doing this and commitment, despite the fact that
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  Speaker 6: he was given a number of chances to back out.
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  Speaker 1: What else stands out when you look at this criminal complaint,
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  Speaker 1: which goes into very explicit detail about this investigation over
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  Speaker 1: the last 21 months, John?
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  Speaker 6: Well, I mean, the thing that stands out to me
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  Speaker 6: is his age again. You know, here is another kid.
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  Speaker 6: And in a recent conversation with Deputy Director Chris Rea
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  Speaker 6: from the FBI, they said increasingly the radicalization is touching
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  Speaker 6: people who are younger and younger, and they are finding
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  Speaker 6: each other on the computer, and they're finding their handlers
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  Speaker 6: on the computer. And the FBI is, you know, struggling
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  Speaker 6: to keep up with that. And it's hard to prosecute
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  Speaker 6: these juvenile cases. In this case, he turned into an adult.
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  Speaker 6: But think about this for a second, Jake. The FBI,
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  Speaker 6: in 2025, went to visit his parents to express their
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  Speaker 6: concerns about what their son was saying online. And according
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  Speaker 6: to the complaint, they were rebuffed. The father referred them
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  Speaker 6: to his attorney, but they didn't really want to get
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  Speaker 6: involved in discussions about what they were seeing about his activities.
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  Speaker 5: This is one of these examples of a homegrown terrorist
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  Speaker 5: or someone who becomes a lone wolf terrorist. There really
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  Speaker 5: isn't any information or evidence that this was ISIS begun,
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  Speaker 5: that ISIS recruited him. This is more inspired. And at
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  Speaker 5: one point he had, in his discussions with an FBI informant,
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  Speaker 5: thought about going to travel overseas to join al-Shabaab. So
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  Speaker 5: this is someone who decided upon himself that he was
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  Speaker 5: going to commit this horrible terrorist act. And fortunately, for
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  Speaker 5: over two years, the FBI was tracking him and making
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  Speaker 5: sure that he never actually did it.
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  Speaker 3: He seemed inspired by other attacks, right? Bondi Beach in Australia, horrific.
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  Speaker 3: New Orleans, which we saw in 2025. What are you
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  Speaker 3: seeing in that and how those other events may have
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  Speaker 3: inspired this?
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  Speaker 4: Certainly.
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  Speaker 5: It follows a pretty normal tradecraft for such individuals. They
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  Speaker 5: get radicalized online. They are consuming extremist content. They feel
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  Speaker 5: inspired by these other attacked attacks. They have foreign jihad aspirations.
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  Speaker 5: And then they look for a domestic target if they
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  Speaker 5: can't get overseas to fight. So they select that target.
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  Speaker 5: They have their operational planning. And then eventually they need
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  Speaker 5: to acquire a weapon, some way to harm, to create
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  Speaker 5: this mass casualty event and to cause this harm. And
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  Speaker 5: that looks like the plot of this story here.
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  Speaker 3: What questions do you have about this investigation? Because we've
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  Speaker 3: learned it was quite long. It was two years long.
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  Speaker 3: The defendant here is 18 years old. The bulk of
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  Speaker 3: the evidence actually came from messages with this confidential human source.
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  Speaker 3: What questions do you have?
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  Speaker 5: Well, it's interesting, and I'm pleased to see that the
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  Speaker 5: FBI is taking these things that are said in chat
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  Speaker 5: rooms seriously. Here, this started in December of 2024, so
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  Speaker 5: it's a little under two years old, with an individual
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  Speaker 5: who was saying radicalized things. Now, when you're saying radical things,
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  Speaker 5: I mean, we have freedom of speech here, that doesn't
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  Speaker 5: mean that you have the intent to take the next step. Now,
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  Speaker 5: putting on my lawyer hat, that intent is critical here.
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  Speaker 5: Did this individual intend to take that weapon and go
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  Speaker 5: shoot up the Mall of America? It sure seems that way,
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  Speaker 5: at least from the FBI's affidavit and the arrest. And then,
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  Speaker 5: of course, you know, over two years, this individual was
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  Speaker 5: a minor in the beginning. And then, of course, by
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  Speaker 5: the time they arrested him, almost two years later, he
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  Speaker 5: had become an adult. So what are they learning from
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  Speaker 5: the individual? How far did he go? I'd like to
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  Speaker 5: see a little bit about the conversations. And and of course,
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  Speaker 5: the FBI is going to have to show the Department
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  Speaker 5: of Justice is going to have to show that at
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  Speaker 5: the end of the day, no one was leading him there,
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  Speaker 5: that he was moving from these aspirations, these I would
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  Speaker 5: love to do this into I am going to do this,
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  Speaker 5: I plan to do this, and I've got the plan
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  Speaker 5: in mind.