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NEW YORK — A Pakistani man was arrested in Canada this week and accused of plotting a mass shooting at a Jewish center in Brooklyn on the one-year anniversary of the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas that sparked the latest conflict in the Middle East, federal authorities announced Friday.
U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland said Muhammad Shahzeb Khan had attempted to travel from Canada, where he lives, to New York City with the “stated goal of slaughtering, in the name of ISIS, as many Jewish people as possible.”
The 20 year-old, who is also known as Shahzeb Jadoon, was apprehended Sept. 4 and charged with attempting to provide material support and resources to the terror group, which stands for the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham.
“Jewish communities — like all communities in this country — should not have to fear that they will be targeted by a hate-fueled terrorist attack,” Garland said in a statement.
It was unclear if Khan has a lawyer, where in Canada he was being held and when he may be brought to the U.S. to face the charges. There was no listing for the case in the online federal court system.
Edward Kim, a spokesperson for the Manhattan federal prosecutor’s office, which is handling the case, deferred to Canadian authorities, who didn’t immediately respond to emails seeking comment.
U.S. authorities said Khan began sharing ISIS propaganda videos and expressing his support for the terror group in social media posts and communications with others on an encrypted messaging app last November.
In conversations with two undercover law enforcement officers, he said he was trying start a “real offline cell” of ISIS in order to carry out attacks against “Israeli Jewish chabads” in America. Khan said he and another ISIS supporter based in the U.S. needed to obtain AR-style assault rifles, ammunition and other materials, according to the Justice Department.
Khan also provided details about how he would cross the border from Canada and said he was considering conducting the attacks on either the Oct. 7 anniversary or on Oct. 11, which is the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur, authorities said.
On Aug. 20, he told the undercover officers that he had settled on targeting New York because of its sizeable Jewish population and sent a photograph of the specific area inside a Jewish center where he planned to carry out the attack, according to the Justice Department.
His online messages described the Brooklyn site, which is not named in court documents, as “the ultra orthodox hasidic jews world headquarters,” according to authorities
A spokesperson for the Chabad-Lubavitch, an influential Hasidic Jewish movement headquartered Brooklyn’s Crown Heights section, didn’t immediately comment Friday.
Khan began making his way to the U.S. using three separate vehicles that included other drivers and passengers before he was stopped around Ormstown, a town in the province of Quebec that is about 12 miles (19 kilometers) from the international border, federal authorities said.
