A Pakistani man living in Canada faces up to 20 years in prison for allegedly planning a mass shooting in New York in support of the Islamic State, the U.S. Justice Department said Friday.
Muhammad Shahzeb Khan, 20, is accused of planning an attack on a Brooklyn Jewish center on the one-year anniversary of the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel that sparked the current Middle East conflict, federal authorities said.
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police, or RCMP, arrested Khan on Wednesday in Ormstown, Quebec, south of the city of Montreal.
RCMP Commissioner Michael Duheme said in a statement: “This planned anti-Semitic attack against Jews in the United States is deplorable and there is no place for such an ideologically motivated and hate-driven crime in Canada.”
U.S. authorities said Khan began sharing Islamic State, or ISIS, propaganda and showing support for the group on social media and an encrypted messaging app in November.
Khan discussed with two undercover agents the idea of creating a “real offline cell” of ISIS to attack “Israeli Jewish Chabads” or community centers in the United States.
He mentioned needing AR-style rifles, ammunition, hunting knives and other materials for the attacks, the Justice Department said.
He had also planned to cross the border from Canada and had considered timing the attack either for the October 7 anniversary or for October 11, which is the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur.
On August 20, Khan provided undercover agents with a photo of the precise location of a Jewish center where he planned to carry out the attack, the Justice Department said.
Khan targeted New York City because he said it had “the largest Jewish population in America,” prosecutors said.
His online posts described the Brooklyn site as “the world headquarters of ultra-Orthodox Hasidic Jews.”
A representative for Chabad-Lubavitch, a large Hasidic Jewish movement based in the Crown Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn, did not comment on the report Friday.
Authorities said Khan began his journey to the United States on the morning of Sept. 4 from the Toronto area. He traveled in a car with other passengers, changing vehicles near Napanee and around Montreal before being arrested near Ormstown, about 19 kilometres from the U.S. border.
Khan intended to travel from Canada to New York “with the goal of massacring, on behalf of ISIS, as many Jews as possible,” U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland said, using another acronym for the terrorist group.
Khan, also known as Shahzeb Jadoon, was arrested on September 4 and charged with attempting to provide material support to the Islamic State.
Garland said in a statement: “Jewish communities – like all communities in this country – should not be afraid of being the target of a hate-motivated terrorist attack.”
It is unclear whether Khan has legal representation or where he is being held in Canada. Canadian authorities have said he will appear in Montreal Superior Court on September 13.
Some information in this report was provided by The Associated Press and Reuters.
USA voanews
