Idaho teenager accused of federal terrorism

A young person in northern Idaho was planning to attack churches. They planned to use a metal pipe, butane fuel, a machete, and possibly their father’s guns. Federal prosecutors charged the teenager with trying to help the Islamic State group.

Officials said that 18-year-old Alexander Scott Mercurio started following the Muslim religion even though his Christian parents didn’t want him to. He also talked to people who he thought were part of the Islamic State group, but they were actually working with the FBI.

Mercurio got arrested on Saturday, a day before investigators think he was going to do the attack. Phone messages were left for a family member and the defense lawyers at the Federal Defenders of Eastern Washington & Idaho, but they did not call back on Tuesday. Mercurio did not answer an email right away using a system for sending emails from jail.

Mercurio told someone he wanted to hurt his father with a pipe, tie him up, and take his guns and car to carry out the attack in Coeur d’Alene, according to an FBI agent’s statement in court.

Mercurio’s father kept guns in a locked closet, but Mercurio planned to attack with a pipe, fire, and knives if he couldn’t get the guns. This was stated by FBI officer John Taylor II.

In an audio recording, Mercurio said that if he could get the key and access the closet, everything would be easier and better for him, and he would achieve better things.

The informant took a photo of Mercurio in front of the IS flag, holding a knife and making a gesture that the group often uses. The recording was supposed to go along with this photo, according to the statement.

After Mercurio attacked the church, he told someone that he planned to attack up to 21 other people in the town before he was killed in an act of martyrdom.

Mercurio talked to secret informers for two years and at one point tried to make a bomb vest to wear during the attacks, the statement said.

Mercurio talked to someone he trusted and said he started talking to IS when COVID-19 closed schools. Investigators found files with IS’s extremist ideas on his school laptop later. Mercurio’s parents didn’t like what he believed in. He supposedly told someone who he thought supported IS about it. Eventually, he started feeling like a hypocrite for not doing an attack yet.

“I used to pray to die for Allah, but now I just want to die and be done with all my problems,” he wrote in a message to the informant, as stated in the statement.

On March 21, Mercurio sent a private message to the informant again. He said he was feeling uneasy and frustrated, and he was wondering how long he could keep living in a humiliating and shameful state.

“I only feel motivated to fight. ” I feel a strong desire to hurt and kill people and make them scared. The message said that I need better weapons than knives.

Police went to arrest Mercurio after he sent a recording saying he supported the IS.

The FBI found the person and arrested him before he could do anything. Now he is accused of trying to help ISIS with their violent plans. This was said by US Attorney General Merrick Garland in a press release. “The Justice Department will keep working hard to stop and punish anyone who tries to harm the people and interests of the United States through acts of terrorism. ”

If found guilty, Mercurio may have to go to prison for as long as 20 years. Mercurio has not had a chance to say if he is guilty or not. He is in a jail in northern Idaho and will go to court for the first time on Wednesday morning.

In 2014, the Islamic State group took over a big area in Syria and Iraq. By 2018, they had mostly been beaten in fights. However, it keeps secret places in the desert in both countries, and its local groups also work in Afghanistan, West Africa, and the Far East. IS said they were behind the attack at a concert hall in Moscow last month, where 145 people died. This was the deadliest attack in Russia in a long time.