Pakistani ISIS Supporter Arrested for Plotting Mass Shooting in New York Jewish Center

NYPD officers respond as people demonstrate calling for a cease-fire amid war between Israel and Hamas, at Grand Central Station in New York City, on Oct. 27, 2023. Kena Betancur/AFP via Getty Images

A Pakistani national residing in Canada was arrested on Sept. 4 and charged with plotting an attack in connection with the terrorist organization ISIS.

Muhammad Shahzeb Khan, 20, “attempted to travel from Canada to New York City, where he intended to use automatic and semi-automatic weapons to carry out a mass shooting,” according to a Sept. 6 statement from the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ).

Attorney General Merrick Garland said, “The defendant is alleged to have planned a terrorist attack in New York City around October 7th of this year with the stated goal of slaughtering, in the name of ISIS, as many Jewish people as possible.”

Oct. 7 is the anniversary of Hamas’s 2023 attack against Israel.

Khan, also known as Shahzeb Jadoon, was arrested in Canada and charged with attempting to provide material support and resources to ISIS. If convicted, he faces a maximum prison term of 20 years.

In about November last year, Khan began posting his support for ISIS on social media and communicating with others on an encrypted messaging application, the DOJ statement said. He allegedly distributed ISIS propaganda videos and literature. Khan eventually came into contact with two undercover law enforcement officers to whom he allegedly revealed his plans.

The DOJ said Khan initially planned to attack “City-1” together with a U.S.-based ISIS supporter. He claimed to have actively attempted to create a “real offline cell” of ISIS supporters to attack the city’s “Israeli Jewish chabads,” the DOJ said. In his communications, Khan asked the undercover officers to obtain AR-style assault rifles, ammunition, and other materials required to carry out the attack, while providing details on how he would cross into the United States.

“Khan emphasized that ‘Oct 7th and Oct 11th are the best days for targeting the Jews’ because ‘Oct 7 they will surely have some protests and Oct 11 is Yom Kippur,’” the statement reads.

He later settled on Oct. 7 and changed the location to a Jewish center located in Brooklyn.

Khan allegedly claimed New York City was “perfect” to target Jews since the city has the “largest Jewish population in America.”

He said, “If we succeed with our plan this would be the largest attack on US soil since 9/11.”

Khan used three separate cars to travel from Canada to the United States, the DOJ noted. He was stopped in or around Ormstown, Canada, roughly 12 miles from the U.S.–Canada border.

Other Plans, Threats

U.S. authorities have arrested multiple individuals over the past year for terrorism-related activities. In April, an Idaho man was arrested for “attempting to provide material support and resources to ISIS,” according to a DOJ statement.

The accused planned to attack people at churches in Coeur d’Alene using multiple weapons, including firearms and knives, it said.

In June, House Committee on Homeland Security Chairman Rep. Mark Green (R-Tenn.) raised concerns about multiple reports of several ISIS-linked individuals being arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement in New York City, Los Angeles, and Philadelphia.

“All of these individuals reportedly entered the United States through the Southwest border, but Customs and Border Protection’s (CBP) limited ability to fully vet and screen those crossing led to all of them being released into the United States,” Green said in the June 12 statement.

The same month, the FBI and the DOJ cooperated with several European partners in a “major takedown” of critical infrastructure aimed at disrupting ISIS propaganda.

As part of the operations, dozens of servers used by the terror outfit were taken down in the United States, the Netherlands, Germany, and Iceland.

The Jewish community in the United States has been targeted since last year’s Hamas attack and subsequent Israeli retaliation.

A January report from the Anti-Defamation League stated that anti-Semitic incidents in the United States “skyrocketed” by 360 percent in the three months following the Hamas attack.