When they are not serving as political mall cops to the Big State, it seems the FBI is able to uncover an amateur terrorist plot or two, in which staples and thumbtacks are the weapons of choice.
According to court papers unsealed on March 25, a man from Maine and two teens planned to attack a Shia Muslim mosque near Chicago in the name of the largely defunct Islamist group ISIS, which enjoyed worldwide fame during the Obama administration.
According to NBC, the FBI said Xavier Pelkey of Waterville, Maine, and the two teens — from Chicago and Kentucky — conspired on Instagram to meet in Chicago during “spring break.” The teens were not named because of their age. The plan, according to the teenager in Chicago, was to “enter the Shia mosque and separate the adults from the children, then murder the adults” in the name of ISIS, according to the court filing.
A search of Pelkey’s home in February yielded a do-it-yourself, amateur-hour terror-trove: several hand-painted ISIS flags and some homemade explosives consisting of fireworks with added “staples, pins and thumb tacks.”
Not exactly military-grade shrapnel.
“If they had not encountered law enforcement at that point, they would continue on to another Shia mosque or Jewish synagogue and execute the same plan. They did not have a plan to escape but rather their plan ended with them being shot by law enforcement,” reads the FBI filing.
The FBI searched the teenagers’ houses in Chicago and in Kentucky in February, and “seized multiple firearms, including a Remington pump shotgun, swords, knives, a bow and arrows, multiple homemade ISIS flags, and multiple electronic devices from Juvenile #1’s residence.”
Pelkey has been charged with being in possession of a destructive device that was not properly registered to him. He was ordered to be held in custody pending trial.
