Mall of America terror suspect was 16 when informant first began talking to him, FBI reports

An FBI informant first began talking to the 18-year-old accused of planning to shoot and kill people at Mall of America when he was 16, the FBI says.

The suspect, Sheikhdoon Abdullahi Mohamud, a Twin Cities resident, was arrested Tuesday in Richfield during an arranged meeting to buy an assault rifle. He made his first court appearance Wednesday and is charged in a federal complaint with knowingly receiving a firearm and ammunition while having reason to believe they would be used in a felony and a federal crime of terrorism.

The FBI tried to speak with Mohamud's parents in May 2025, but they rebuffed the attempts, U.S. Attorney Daniel Rosen said at a news conference Wednesday. Rosen urged parents who hear from federal law enforcement that a child is being radicalized to heed the warning.

Counterterrorism expert Seamus Hughes says the people drawn into terror groups are getting younger. He says terrorist groups have always targeted vulnerable people, but young men are increasingly isolated and online. The vast majority of recruits now are young and male, he says, "terminally online, going down a rabbit hole." The 18-year-old charged in the Mall of America plot appears to fit that description.

Hughes says most recent terror cases begin and end online, unlike in the past, when people were recruited in person. He says the issue has become a huge priority for the FBI because recruits are getting younger.

Looking back over the last two decades, Hughes says, a bystander effect keeps showing up in terrorism cases. Loved ones and friends see someone going down the wrong path, he says, but they are "watching the train wreck happen in slow motion and don't know what to do."

Routine law enforcement techniques can help flush out people being radicalized, Hughes says. When people raise concerns with law enforcement about someone communicating online, he says, those signals can add up to an investigation.

Big arrests also tend to bring in a lot of information from the community about the most vulnerable people being recruited, Hughes says, and he believes that could mean more investigations in Minnesota. Most of those leads go nowhere, but "it's that 10% that worries you," he said. Investigators also ramp up their techniques after large arrests, he says, and ISIS-related prosecutions and arrests have increased across the country in recent months.

In 2014, dozens of young men from Minnesota were recruited to travel overseas to fight for terror groups like al-Shabaab and ISIS. One Minnesota ISIS case ended in November 2016, when nine defendants were sentenced over three days. The three men who went to trial received sentences of 30 to 35 years.