A Pakistani national living in Canada was arrested on Wednesday and charged with planning an attack in New York City in support of the Islamic State, the Justice Department said on Friday.
Muhammad Shahzeb Khan, 20, is accused of plotting a mass shooting at a Jewish center in Brooklyn around October 7, 2024. That would have been nearly a year after a Hamas attack that killed more than 1,000 people in Israel.
Attorney General Merrick Garland said Khan, also known as Shahzeb Jadoon, aimed to “kill as many Jews as possible.”
According to the indictment, Khan had attempted to travel from Canada to the United States, where he intended to use automatic and semi-automatic weapons to carry out the attack.
He was arrested in Canada, just 12 miles (19 km) from the US border.
The indictment alleges that Khan told two undercover law enforcement officials that he planned to carry out the attack by forming a “virtual offline cell” of Islamic State supporters.
He directed them to obtain AR-style assault rifles, ammunition, and other materials to carry out the attacks, and identified specific locations where the attacks were to be carried out.
Prosecutors said Khan targeted New York City because it has “the largest Jewish population in the United States.”
“We are deeply grateful to our Canadian partners for their important law enforcement work in this case. Jewish communities — like all communities across this country — should not fear that they will be targeted by a hate-motivated terrorist attack,” Garland said in a statement.
