DETROIT — Two men who had acquired high-powered weapons and practiced at gun ranges were scouting LGBTQ+ bars in suburban Detroit for a possible attack, authorities said Monday in filing terrorism-related charges against the pair.
Momed Ali, Majed Mahmoud and co-conspirators were inspired by Islamic State extremism, according to a 72-page criminal complaint unsealed in federal court. Investigators say a minor, identified only as Person 1, was deeply involved in the discussions.
“Our American heroes prevented a terror attack,” U.S. Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi said on X.
The men, described as too young to drink alcohol, had looked at LGBTQ+ bars in Ferndale as a possible attack, according to the complaint.
FBI agents had surveilled the men for weeks, even using a camera on a pole outside a Dearborn house, according to the court filing. Investigators also got access to encrypted chats and other conversations.
FBI Director Kash Patel had announced arrests Friday, but no details were released at the time while agents searched a home in Dearborn and a storage unit in nearby Inkster.
The FBI said the men repeatedly referred to “pumpkins” in their conversations, a reference to a Halloween attack.
Ali and Mahmoud were charged with receiving and transferring guns and ammunition for terrorism. Mahmoud had recently bought more than 1,600 rounds of ammunition that could be used for AR-15-style rifles, and they practiced at gun ranges, the government alleged.
They will appear in court Monday for their initial appearance. Mahmoud’s lawyer, William Swor, declined to comment. Messages seeking comment from Ali’s lawyer, Amir Makled, were not immediately answered.
Over the weekend, Makled seemed to wave off the allegations, saying they were the result of “hysteria” and “fear-mongering.”
It’s the second case since May involving alleged plots in the Detroit area on behalf of the Islamic State. The FBI said it arrested a man who had spent months planning an attack against a U.S. Army site in Warren. Ammar Said has pleaded not guilty and remains in custody.
FBI: ‘Anti-ICE’ message appeared on ammunition from Dallas ICE facility shooting
A detainee has died and two others are critically injured after a rooftop sniper opened fire at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) centre in Dallas, Texas, officials say.
The gunman fired indiscriminately at the ICE facility and at a nearby unmarked van, law enforcement officials say, before dying from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
No law enforcement were injured. FBI Director Kash Patel posted a photo on X of unused ammunition recovered from the scene. One casing has the phrase “ANTI-ICE” on it.
It is the latest in a string of attacks on ICE facilities in recent months as the agency ramps up efforts to deliver on US President Donald Trump’s pledge for mass deportations.
Kash Patel/FBI
“While the investigation is ongoing, an initial review of the evidence shows an ideological motive behind this attack,” Patel wrote on X.
“These despicable, politically motivated attacks against law enforcement are not a one-off.”
Dallas police said officers responded to an assist officer call at the facility around 06:40 local time (11:40 GMT).
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said three detainees were shot. One has died, and two were critically injured, it said. They remain in critical condition, officials later said.
The department had initially said two people had died in addition to the shooter, only to revise that information conditions hours later.
One injured detainee is a Mexican national, the Mexican foreign ministry said.
Acting ICE director Todd Lyons identified the shooter as 29-year-old Joshua Jahn, the BBC’s US partner, CBS News reported. He died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound, authorities said.
Voter records indicate he was registered as an independent and last voted in the general election in 2024.
Jahn had cannabis related charges in Texas dating back to 2016, according to records seen by the BBC.
FBI special agent Joe Rothrock told a news conference that rounds found near the gunman contained “messages that are anti-ICE in nature”.
“This is just the most recent example of this type of attack,” he said, adding the FBI was investigating it as “an act of targeted violence”.
Dallas police said a preliminary investigation determined the suspect had opened fire from an adjacent building.
“The shooter fired indiscriminately at the ICE building, including at a van in the sallyport where the victims were shot,” DHS said in a statement.
The Reuters news agency reported that the building targeted is an ICE field office used for short-term processing of recently arrested detainees, and is not used as a detention facility.
Lyons told CBS News on Wednesday that the shooter deliberately targeted law enforcement with a “high-powered rifle”.
He said given the time are area of the shooting, it could have been more deadly.
The suspect “could have, in his indiscriminate fire, hit people traveling to work, civilians on the ground,” he said.
Edwin Cardona, a Dallas resident from Venezuela, told local media he was entering the building for an appointment when he heard gunfire.
“I was afraid for my family because my family was outside. I felt terrible because I thought something could happen to them. Thank God no,” he said.
Aerials show Dallas ICE facility and surrounding area
Acting director of the Dallas ICE office Joshua Johnson told the news conference it was the second time he has had to stand in front of the media and talk about a gunman at one of his facilities.
“The takeaway from all of this is that the rhetoric has to stop,” he said.
Texas Senator Ted Cruz also spoke at the news conference, condemning “politically motivated violence”.
“Your political opponents are not Nazis,” he said, urging people not to demonise each other for partisan reasons. “The divisive rhetoric, tragically, has real consequences.”
While the shooter’s motive remains unclear, the attack comes amid growing concerns in the US about political violence in the wake of the killing of conservative activist Charlie Kirk this month.
US President Donald Trump, in a lengthy post on social media on Wednesday evening, said ICE officers are facing “an unprecedented increase in threats” and accused “Radical Left Democrats” of “constantly demonizing Law Enforcement”.
Trump noted on Monday he signed an executive order designating Antifa a terrorist organisation, and added he would sign another this week to “dismantle these Domestic Terrorism Networks”.
No information has been released by officials to suggest Antifa – a loosely organised, leftist movement that opposes far-right, racist and fascist groups – has any connection to the shooting.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said in a statement: “This shooting must serve as a wake-up call to the far-left that their rhetoric about ICE has consequences.”
Democratic lawmakers also condemned the shooting, including Senator Cory Booker who called it “an unacceptable act of violence”.
“While we don’t know all of the details yet, what we can, and all should, agree on is that the vilification of any group of people endangers them. It makes them targets. And it must stop,” he said on X.
Republican Governor of Texas Greg Abbott said on X the shooting would “NOT slow our arrest, detention, & deportation of illegal immigrants”.
The ICE field office in Dallas has been targeted by a series of protests this summer.
A man was arrested in August after he entered the facility claiming to have a bomb in his backpack, according to the DHS.
The 36-year-old US citizen, Bratton Dean Wilkinson, had shown the building’s security staff a device on his wrist that he described as a bomb “detonator,” the DHS said.
Last month shots were fired at ICE offices in San Antonio, Texas. No injuries were reported in that incident, which ICE blamed on “political rhetoric”.
Another shooting occurred on the 4 July public holiday at an ICE facility in Alvarado, Texas, after a protest escalated into a face-off with police. An officer was shot in the neck, and survived. Eleven people have been charged over that attack.
The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Thursday that California’s policy of background checks for bullet-buyers violates the 2nd Amendment, effectively killing a 2016 ballot measure meant to strengthen the state’s notoriously stringent gun laws.
Writing for two of the three judges on the appellate panel, Judge Sandra Segal Ikuta said the law “meaningfully constrains the right to keep operable arms” guaranteed by the constitution, by forcing California gun owners to re-authorize before each ammunition purchase.
“The right to keep and bear arms incorporates the right to operate them, which requires ammunition,” the judge wrote.
The ruling is the latest blow to statewide efforts to regulate guns.
Both the 9th Circuit and the U.S. Supreme Court have significantly restricted gun control measures in just the last decade. Two of the three controlling cases Ikuta cited in her decision were handed down in the last three years.
Thursday’s ruling drew primarily from a 2022 Supreme Court decision that sharply limited gun control measures passed by individual states, finding that such laws must be “consistent with the Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.”
California had attempted to sidestep that test in part by pointing to Reconstruction-era loyalty oaths some Americans were required to make before buying guns.
But that didn’t sway the panel.
“The problem of ensuring that citizens are loyal to the United States by requiring a one-time loyalty oath is not analogous to California’s recurring ammunition background check rules,” Ikuta wrote. “These laws are not relevant.”
Judge Jay Bybee disagreed.
“California, which has administered the scheme since 2019, has shown that the vast majority of its checks cost one dollar and impose less than one minute of delay,” the judge wrote in his dissent. “The majority has broken with our precedent and flouted the Supreme Court’s guidance.”
Data from the California Department of Justice’s Bureau of Firearms shows the program approved 89% of purchases, most within about three minutes. It rejected slightly more than 10% on technicalities that were later resolved, and fewer than one percent because the buyer was banned.
Although the 2022 case had “ushered in a new era for Second Amendment jurisprudence,” Bybee wrote, it didn’t preclude the bullet-background check scheme.
“We have repeatedly rejected the majority’s boundless interpretation of the Second Amendment,” Bybee wrote. “It is difficult to imagine a regulation on the acquisition of ammunition or firearms that would not ‘meaningfully constrain’ the right to keep and bear arms under the majority’s new general applicability standard.”
It was not immediately clear if the ruling would lift restrictions in place for the last six years. California leaders have not yet said whether they would appeal the decision.
Gun rights activists were thrilled by the news.
“Today’s ruling is a major step forward for the Second Amendment and the rights of every law-abiding citizen,”said Dan Wolgin, CEO of Ammunition Depot, one of the plaintiffs in the case.
The prominent activist and former photojournalist is charged over alleged role in deadly antigovernment protests in June.
A prominent Kenyan human rights activist has been charged with unlawful possession of ammunition over his alleged role in deadly antigovernment protests in June.
Boniface Mwangi was charged by the police on Monday, two days after he was arrested and accused of possessing unused tear gas canisters, a “7.62mm blank round”, two mobile phones, a laptop and notebooks.
Kenya has been facing mass antigovernment protests across the country since last year – first against tax increases in a finance bill and later to demand the resignation of President William Ruto.
Since the protests broke out, police have been accused of human rights abuses, including allegations of government critics and activists being abducted and tortured.
Rights groups said more than 100 people have been killed in the protests, which have been harshly suppressed.
This month, at least 31 people were killed and more than 100 injured in a government crackdown on a protest. In June, at least 19 people were killed in a similar demonstration against Ruto.
Police accused Mwangi, a former photojournalist, of “facilitating terrorist acts” during the June protests and arrested him on Saturday. The activist denied the charges, saying in a social media post shared by his supporters: “I am not a terrorist.”
His arrest triggered a wave of condemnation online with the hashtag #FreeBonifaceMwangi going viral and rights groups condemning it.
The search warrant police used to raid Mwangi’s home, which an ally shared with journalists, accused the campaigner of having paid “goons” to stoke unrest at last month’s protests.
However, 37 rights organisations and dozens of activists said they have not yet managed to prove that a judge had issued that warrant.
Mwangi’s arrest on “unjustified terrorism allegations” represents an abuse of the justice system to crush the opposition, the organisations said in a joint statement.
“What began as targeted persecution of young protesters demanding accountability has metastasized into a full-scale assault on Kenya’s democracy,” the groups said.
In June last year, Al Jazeera’s digital documentary strand Close Up profiled Mwangi during a ferocious police crackdown. He then said his nickname online was the “People’s Watchman” because he was striving to get justice for the families of protesters killed by police.
Mwangi has been arrested multiple times in Kenya.
He was arrested on May 19 this year in Dar-es-Salaam, neighbouring Tanzania’s largest city, where he had travelled to support treason-accused Tanzanian opposition leader Tundu Lissu.
Both Mwangi and a fellow detainee, award-winning Ugandan activist Agather Atuhaire, accused the Tanzanian police of torturing and sexually abusing them while they were in custody.
The pair have brought a case before the East African Court of Justice.
