Potential terrorist who stored explosives in Colorado, practiced church bombings, sentenced on hate crime charge

A 46-year-old Phoenix resident and Iraqi native received a maximum six-year prison sentence Friday on a hate crime charge for playing out plans to bomb Christian churches in three states.

Zimnako Salah visited four churches in Arizona, California, and Colorado in late 2023, according to evidence presented at his trial earlier this year. Salah placed black backpacks inside two of the churches -- one in Sacramento, California, and another in Scottsdale, Arizona. 

Congregants and security personnel found the backpacks. The Scottsdale backpack was left among pews during a service by a masked man, per details in federal court documents. Police found clothing inside it.

The Sacramento church, including children in Sunday school classes, was evacuated after a backpack was found in a restroom strapped to a toilet. A church security agent detached the backpack and carried it into the church's parking lot. She later admitted to investigators that the decision to move the backpack was a mistake, and while doing it, she feared she "might meet Jesus today."

That backpack only contained a pillow. 

At the other two churches, including one in Greenwood Village, Colorado, Salah was confronted by security before he got the chance to leave the backpacks behind. An off-duty deputy with the Arapahoe County Sheriff's Office was working for the church that day. He encountered a man, later identified as Salah, outside the building.

In his report to federal investigators, the deputy said the man walked toward the main entrance while carrying a backpack. The deputy followed the man toward the church's bathrooms, but the man turned around and left as the deputy followed him. Nothing suspicious was found in a search of the building.

Salah was connected to the four incidents by surveillance videos, including the Colorado deputy's bodycam recording, some of which showed the vehicles he drove into the parking lots. Investigators found those vehicles at Salah's residence in Phoenix. Inside one of them was a receipt for a storage unit in Colorado. 

Inside that storage unit, they found propane canisters, strips of duct tape with nails attached, wiring and wire cutters, a battery, and what appeared to be an Islamic Koran.

The storage unit was located 15 minutes from the church in Greenwood Village.

Further evidence was found on Salah's cell phone, including tower "pings" in the areas of the four churches during the times the incidents occurred. Salah's social media records also showed that he had viewed online "extremist propaganda," as described by prosecutors with the U.S. Department of Justice. 

"Specifically, those records showed that Salah had searched for videos of 'Infidels dying,' and he had watched videos depicting ISIS terrorists murdering people," stated the DOJ's press release Friday. "In a cellphone video taken days before the crimes of conviction, Defendant Salah declared, 'America. We are going to destroy it.'"

Similarly, a man who, at one time, lived with Salah in Phoenix, told investigators that Salah had a negative reaction to a hat he wore displaying an American flag. Salah, per the investigator's report, told the resident, "F*** this country. I hate America. This country went to Iraq and killed a lot of people."  

Salah was arrested six days after the Colorado incident. In an interview, he told investigators he was a Sunni from Northern Iraq who had been living in Arizona for approximately 20 years.  

He was prosecuted in federal court in California. A jury found him guilty in March of attempting to convey a bomb threat and obstructing the free exercise of religion. The verdict found the offenses to be a hate crime.

"Salah's seeming ultimate goal to bomb a Christian church would have resulted in many deaths and injuries if his plan had not been thwarted," stated U.S. Attorney Eric Grant, whose California office prosecuted the case.  

"The FBI has zero tolerance for those who target Americans based on their religious beliefs," Sid Patel, FBI special agent in charge of the Sacramento Field Office, added. "Salah sought to instill fear and disrupt Christian communities across California, Colorado, and Arizona. We are grateful for the cooperation of these churches and communities, which were vital in the investigation that led to Salah's arrest and conviction. Today's sentencing highlights the collective efforts of law enforcement and vigilant Americans in preventing this act of terrorism."