An 18-year-old American citizen of Somali descent paid $600 cash for an AK-47, four magazines and about 200 rounds, then told an undercover FBI employee he planned to shoot shoppers at the Mall of America.
Federal agents arrested him in a Richfield park on October 6, minutes after the handoff. The rifle had been rendered inert. The date he had picked was October 24, a Hmong Arts Celebration he expected would put “a lot of people” in the building.
The same stretch of days brought a homecoming shooting outside Eden Prairie High School, a Bloomington gunfight that left nearly 100 shell casings, and a Somali press conference whose explanation was that people in the comms community are working too hard.
Sheikhdoon Abdullahi Mohamud, of Richfield, was charged by complaint on October 7 with one count of knowingly receiving a firearm and ammunition in order to commit a federal crime of terrorism.
The FBI had been in his messages since December 2024. According to the Justice Department, he told a confidential source he wanted to travel to Somalia and fight for a designated foreign terrorist organization.
He also said, repeatedly, that if he could not afford the flight he would carry out a mass-casualty attack in Minnesota in support of ISIS.
In July 2026 he settled on the Mall of America because, he wrote, it was owned by Jews, and he wanted to kill 30 to 60 people so no one would go there.
In September he sent a selfie-style video pledging allegiance to ISIS and named October 24, telling the source the mall would be full of Asians and other “kuffar.”
FBI Director Kash Patel said Mohamud “allegedly obtained a weapon he hoped to use in a mass casualty attack in support of ISIS, but the FBI arrested him and put a stop to his plans.”
Assistant Attorney General John A. Eisenberg said Mohamud “allegedly sought to carry out a mass-casualty shooting at the Mall of America, expressing a desire to emulate some of the most horrific ISIS-inspired attacks in the United States, including the atrocities at Pulse Nightclub and the 2025 New Year’s Day attack in New Orleans.”
U.S. Attorney Daniel N. Rosen said that, as alleged, Mohamud “took substantial steps to plot to murder innocent people in the name of ISIS.” FBI Minneapolis Special Agent in Charge Christopher D. Dotson said Mohamud “allegedly sought martyrdom in carrying out his plans to murder innocent civilians.”
The Star Tribune, citing the complaint, reported messages in his own words: “I wanna get martyred inshallah,” and “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 2025, agents tried to interview him. His father declined to share information and said he would pass their number to a lawyer.
This is not a new pattern in the Twin Cities. The Justice Department has already charged waves of Minnesota Somalis over travel to fight with al-Shabaab and, in 2015, over a conspiracy to support ISIS.
A denaturalization case against one man who pleaded guilty to supporting al-Shabaab remains pending. Mohamud did not need a passport. He needed $600 and a mall.
While that case was moving toward an arrest, police were picking up casings in the suburbs. Shots fired around 8:40 p.m. on October 2 outside Eden Prairie High School’s homecoming game at Aerie Stadium wounded an 18-year-old and a 17-year-old.
Eden Prairie police later arrested 18-year-old Adam Abdihakeem Adam of St. Louis Park on probable-cause second-degree assault and said the shooting was related to Somali gang activity.
Bloomington Police Chief Booker Hodges, after a shootout that left nearly 100 casings, described the suspects as coming “from two parent homes, living in apartment buildings with $3,500 a month rent, driving Beamers and Mercedes.”
Ramsey County Sheriff Bob Fletcher warned it was early: “Once they evolve into drugs, we’re in trouble. Once they evolve into money, more money, we are in trouble.” He has put the juvenile gang roll at about 300 across a dozen groups.
On Wednesday, Somali leaders gathered in Eden Prairi. Asad Aliweyd, a father of eight who led the event, said: “We recognize that Somali American youth were involved, and those responsible must be held accountable. But those are also American youth, born and raised all here, educated here, and grew up in our communities.” He added: “This is not simply a Somali problem. It’s a youth violence and gun violence problem.”
Fardousa Yossuf, identified by Alpha News as a Somali mother and teacher, offered a different culprit. “We came to America … and so much expecting from us,” she said. “Sometimes I feel, in our community, we had too much, we worked very hard, and we really did not give enough attention to our kids.”
She also said: “We never thought that our children, we have been raising them, and taking them to the Madrasa, which is to teach the Islamic values, that they will … get guns.”
Eden Prairie Mayor Ron Case was less delicate: “This, today, that we’re dealing with in our region, is definitely a young male Somali issue.”
Alpha News noted a December 2025 Center for Immigration Studies finding that 89 percent of Minnesota Somali households with children receive some form of welfare. “Worked very hard” is a flexible phrase in a state that has already watched meal programs, autism billing and daycare subsidies turn into ATMs.
Aliweyd’s own nonprofit sits inside that record. KARE 11’s Lou Raguse reported that the New American Development Center, which Aliweyd leads, was ordered in civil court to repay $1.1 million to the Minnesota Department of Education after the state said it “engaged in unlawful practices, false and fraudulent claims.”
The group took in $7.8 million in federal child-nutrition funds and claimed 2.9 million meals in 2021–22 before being banned from the program. Aliweyd has not been criminally charged. He has not answered KARE’s questions. He did find time to tell a camera the gangs are an American problem.
None of this arrived in a vacuum. Citizen journalist Nick Shirley’s December reporting on Somali-linked “empty” daycares, autism shops and transportation firms put a camera on storefronts that were billing as if they were full.
Prosecutors have described schemes running into the billions, with Feeding Our Future alone the largest COVID-era food fraud in the country.
Shirley said the threats against him started immediately. People sent him photos of bodies in ditches. Security moved him out of a hotel and told him he was the “number one man” with a hit on him. He said others warned he would be “Kirked.”
BOMBSHELL Report Exposes Network Of Somali-Linked “Empty” Daycares In Minnesota
Nick Shirley Says People Telling Him He’ll Be ‘Kirked’ After Viral Somali Fraud Video
Leftists Put HITS OUT On Nick Shirley After He Exposed Massive Somali Fraud In Minnesota
State Rep. Kristin Robbins said dozens of whistleblowers were told to keep quiet or be branded racist or Islamophobic. Governor Tim Walz’s line, given to the New York Times as the scandal widened, was that “the programs are set up to move the money to people” and “the criminals find the loopholes.” He had already signaled he wanted more Somali arrivals, not fewer.
MN Lawmaker: Walz Team THREATENED Whistleblowers With “Racism” & “Islamophobia” Slurs To Hide Somali Fraud
The money did not stay in Minneapolis. TSA whistleblowers described Somali men leaving Minnesota with suitcases of cash, one former agent putting the flow at $1 billion over five years, “always waived through.”
Watch: TSA Whistleblowers Expose Somali Cash Smuggling Operations at US Airports
Later reporting put hundreds of millions through Minneapolis–St. Paul alone. A source told City Journal the Minnesota taxpayer had become “the largest funder of Al-Shabaab.”
REVEALED: Hundreds Of MILLIONS In Somali Cash Flown Through Minneapolis Airport
Stephen Miller has warned that Democrats were importing clans and turning elections into clan contests, and that the fraud scandal could force a break with business as usual.
Miller’s ‘Somalification’ Warning: Dems Flooding America With Clans For Power
Miller: Somali Fraud Scandal Could Create Unprecedented Milestone In US History
INSANE: Somali-Owned Truck Drives WRONG WAY On Highway, Driver Licensed By Tim Walz
Watch: Somali Enclave Standoff;‘No English, No Women On Camera’
President Trump froze immigration from Somalia in January as the cases piled up.
Trump Freezes All Immigration From Somalia Amid Massive Fraud Scandal
A Somali lawmaker, Dr. Abdillahi Hashi Abib, has since described networks moving forged documents, children and al-Shabaab affiliates into the United States, with Minnesota as a hub.
Somali Lawmaker Shares How US Pays The Price Of Somali Terror And Trafficking
Minneapolis, meanwhile, has spent the spring pushing to legalize sex bathhouses pitched at gay Somali immigrants, as if the policy class’s remaining idea is to manage the enclave rather than stop building it.
Minneapolis Pushes To Legalize SEX BATHHOUSES For GAY Somali Immigrants
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Source: https://modernity.news/2026/10/09/fbi-stops-somalis-mass-shooting-plot-at-minnesota-mall-of-america/
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