The United States said Friday it had foiled a “terrorist attack” against Jews in New York that was allegedly carried out around October 7 in the name of the Islamic State group (IS). A Pakistani suspect living in Canada was reportedly arrested.
The 20-year-old, “Muhammad Shahzeb Khan, aka Shazeb Jadoon, attempted to enter the United States to commit a mass shooting at a Jewish center in New York City,” the U.S. Justice Department said in a statement. He was arrested in Canada on September 4 following a request from the Manhattan federal prosecutor’s office.
“To massacre as many Jews as possible”
“The defendant is suspected of planning a terrorist attack around October 7 of this year with the stated goal of massacring, in the name of ISIS, as many Jews as possible,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said. FBI Director Christopher Wray said the young Pakistani was “determined to kill Jews here in the United States, nearly a year after Hamas’s heinous attack on Israel.”
According to the FBI and federal prosecutors’ investigation in New York, cited in the statement, Muhammad Shahzeb Khan, a resident of Canada, attempted to travel to New York. “He intended to carry out a mass shooting in support of ISIS using automatic and semi-automatic weapons against a Jewish center in Brooklyn,” a neighborhood with a large Jewish community.
Under surveillance since November
The young man had been under surveillance since last November, particularly for his messages on social networks, his encrypted communications and the “distribution of videos and propaganda literature of the IS”, the Ministry of Justice also indicated in its press release.
Merrick Garland said he was “deeply grateful to our Canadian partners for acting swiftly and taking the accused into custody.”