Ex-Michigan Army National Guardsman arrested, charged with attempting to attack Army base for ISIS

A former Michigan Army National Guardsman has ben charged with attempting to attack a Detroit Army base for ISIS after planning a mass shooting.

The former Guardsman, 19-year-old Ammar Abdulmajid-Mohamed Said, was charged by the Department of Justice after his arrest on Tuesday with attempting to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization and distributing information related to a destructive device, the DOJ announced Wednesday.

Said told two undercover law enforcement officers of a plan he created to conduct a mass-shooting at the U.S. Army’s Tank-Automotive & Armaments Command facility at the Detroit Arsenal in Warren, Mich., according to the criminal complaint.

After the undercover officers indicated they would carry out his plan at the direction of ISIS, he gave them armor-piercing ammunition and magazines for the attack, and flew his drone over the facility for operational reconnaissance. Said also trained the officers on firearms and the construction of Molotov cocktails to use during the attack, and planned details of the attack, including how to enter the facility and which building to target.

He was arrested Tuesday, which was the scheduled day of the attack, after he traveled to an area near the facility and launched his drone for the attack plan. Said faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison for each count if convicted.

“This defendant is charged with planning a deadly attack on a U.S. military base here at home for ISIS,” said DOJ's National Security Division Chief Sue J. Bai. “Thanks to the tireless efforts of law enforcement, we foiled the attack before lives were lost. We will not hesitate to bring the full force of the Department to find and prosecute those who seek to harm our men and women in the military and to protect all Americans.

“The arrest of this former soldier is a sobering reminder of the importance of our counterintelligence efforts to identify and disrupt those who would seek to harm our nation,” said the commanding general of Army Counterintelligence Command, Brig. Gen. Rhett R. Cox."