Pakistani man faces 20 years in prison for attack on Jewish center in New York

A Pakistani man living in Canada faces up to 20 years in prison for allegedly planning a mass shooting in New York in support of the Islamic State, the U.S. Department of Justice said on Friday.

Muhammad Shahzeb Khan, 20, is accused of planning an attack on a Jewish center in Brooklyn on the first anniversary of the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack in Israel that sparked the current conflict in the Middle East, federal authorities said.

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) arrested Khan on Wednesday in Ormstown, Quebec, south of the city of Montreal.

RCMP Commissioner Michael Duheme said in a statement: “This planned anti-Semitic attack on Jews in the United States is deplorable and there is no place for such ideological and hate-motivated crimes in Canada.”

According to US authorities, Khan began spreading Islamic State (IS) propaganda and expressing support for the group on social media and an encrypted messaging app in November.

Khan discussed with two undercover agents the idea of ​​creating a “true offline cell” of ISIS to attack “Israeli Jewish Chabad cells,” or community centers in the United States.

He mentioned that he needed AR rifles, ammunition, hunting knives and other materials for the attacks, the Justice Department said.

He also planned to cross the border from Canada and considered timing the attack either on October 7, the anniversary, or on October 11, the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur.

On August 20, Khan presented undercover investigators with a photograph of the specific location in a Jewish center where he planned to carry out the attack, the Justice Department said.

Khan targeted New York City because he said it had “the largest Jewish population in America,” prosecutors said.

In his online messages, he described the Brooklyn site as “the global headquarters of ultra-Orthodox Hasidic Jews.”

A representative of Chabad-Lubavitch, a prominent Hasidic Jewish movement in Brooklyn's Crown Heights neighborhood, declined to comment on the report on Friday.

Authorities said Khan began his journey to the U.S. from the Toronto area on the morning of Sept. 4. He traveled in a car with other passengers and changed vehicles near Napanee and around Montreal before being stopped near Ormstown, about 12 miles from the U.S. border.

Khan planned to travel from Canada to New York City with the “goal of slaughtering as many Jews as possible in the name of ISIS,” said U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland, using another acronym for the terrorist group.

Khan, also known as Shahzeb Jadoon, was arrested on September 4 and charged with attempting to provide material support to the Islamic State.

Garland said in a statement: “Jewish communities – like all communities in this country – should not have to fear being the target of a hateful terrorist attack.”

It is unclear if Khan has a lawyer or where in Canada he is being held. Canadian authorities have announced that he will appear in Supreme Court in Montreal on September 13.

Some information for this report was provided by The Associated Press and Reuters.