The FBI announced it arrested an 18-year-old Idaho man for concocting a “violent plot” on local churches on behalf of the ISIS terrorist group, according to a new release issued Monday.
Alexander Mercurio is facing a federal charge of attempting to provide material support or resources to a foreign terrorist organization, said the Department of Justice (DOJ) in a release, adding that he was plotting to incapacitate his father, restrain him, steal his guns and other weapons, and carry out attacks on churches in Coeur d'Alene, a city in northwestern Idaho, on Sunday.
“The defendant allegedly pledged loyalty to ISIS and sought to attack people attending churches in Idaho, a truly horrific plan which was detected and thwarted by the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force,” FBI Director Christopher Wray said in a statement Tuesday.
Meanwhile, Attorney General Merrick Garland said that Mr. Mercurio allegedly “planned to wage an attack in its name on churches in Coeur d’Alene,” adding that he was taken into custody before he could act.
If convicted, he could face a maximum penalty of 20 years in a federal prison, according to the DOJ’s news release. Mr. Mercurio is currently in custody awaiting his court appearance. No court date has yet been set, local media reported.
The arrest followed an FBI investigation, which said that he declared his support online for ISIS and other terrorist groups, according to court documents. He met with a law enforcement source working on behalf of the FBI and made those statements, court papers show.
“He amassed a collection of items he intended to use to conduct an attack against a local church and its congregation, planned to violently assault his father with a metal pipe so he could steal a vehicle and firearms belonging to his father, pledged allegiance to ISIS, declared his own desire to be killed during his attack, and made arrangements to send his life savings to ISIS,” court papers stated.
And during a search of his parents’ Idaho home, officials found “items consistent with his planned attack,” the court documents revealed. They included “handcuffs, folding saw, head coverings, two canisters of butane fuel, and [a] machete.”
Several rifles and handguns were found in the bedroom of his father, and Mr. Mercurio said that he “intended to incapacitate his father with a pipe, handcuff him, and use the firearms locked in the closet to attack the church,” according to the court papers.
Officials also accused Mr. Mercurio of spreading pro-ISIS propaganda online and spoke of ways to back the Islamist terrorist group financially. He also expressed a desire to travel to western Africa to help the group locally, the papers said.
FBI testimony also showed that he was involved in a chat group with fellow ISIS backers, while they discovered that his laptop had documents pertaining to the group’s ideology.
“Thanks to the investigative efforts of the FBI, the defendant was taken into custody before he could act, and he is now charged with attempting to support ISIS’s mission of terror and violence,“ said Mr. Garland in the release. ”The Justice Department will continue to relentlessly pursue, disrupt, and hold accountable those who would commit acts of terrorism against the people and interests of the United States.”
FBI special agent Shohini Sinha added in the release that the Mercurio case “should be an eye-opener to the dangers of self-radicalization, which is a real threat to our communities.”
Several months ago, another 18-year-old, Humzah Mashkoor, from Colorado was charged with providing support to ISIS after he allegedly plotted to travel to the Middle East and join the organization.
Outside of the United States, ISIS-K, which is allegedly based in Afghanistan, claimed responsibility for a terrorist attack at a concert hall in Moscow, Russia, that left more than 140 people dead. The group used the ISIS-affiliated Amaq to announce it was behind the attack, according to reports.
The United States sees the group as an ongoing threat. Gen. Michael Kurilla, the commander of U.S. Central Command, told Congress last March that ISIS-K was quickly developing the ability to conduct “external operations” in Europe and Asia.
He predicted it would be able to attack U.S. and Western interests outside Afghanistan “in as little as six months and with little to no warning.” Attacks within the United States itself were less likely, he said.
The United States has said its ability to develop intelligence against extremist groups in Afghanistan such as ISIS-K has been reduced since the withdrawal of U.S. troops from the country in 2021. The U.S. military has said it can see the “broad contours” of an impending attack, but does not have the specific details it did previously.
