A Florida man charged with providing support to the Islamic State allegedly stockpiled weapons and was scouting targets for an attack.
The FBI arrested 23-year-old Muhammed Momtaz al Azhari this week after purchasing weapons from an undercover FBI informant who he had spoken to about carrying out a mass shooting akin to Omar Mateen’s 2016 attack at Orlando’s Pulse Nightclub that killed 49 people.
Al Azhari allegedly told the undercover informant, “I want to die in a shootout with disbelievers. I want to take revenge,” and “I don’t want to take [kill] four or five, I want to take at least fifty, like brother Omar Mateen in Orlando did.”
Although a U.S. citizen, al Azhari spent three years in a Saudi Arabian prison for attempting to join a terrorist group to fight with against the Syrian government. After being released, he returned to the United States in 2018. The FBI began investigating him in April after he tried to purchase a gun and silencer from an undercover agent using the online auction website eBay.
Al Azhari allegedly scouted out locations either in-person or on his phone for his planned attack. The FBI said one of the places he considered was Honeymoon Island State Park, one of the most visited state parks in Florida. He also is accused of looking into the Hard Rock Cafe, “busy beaches,” and the FBI’s office in Tampa.
He reportedly confided in co-workers at a Tampa-area Home Depot that “Americans got what they deserved” regarding the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. The Justice Department also said that al Azhari told an informant that attacks in the U.S. shouldn’t be avoided “because of children in America.”
Al Azhari faces up to 20 years in prison if he is convicted.
