NEW YORK — A criminal complaint unsealed Tuesday revealed that a Pakistani national living in Canada attempted to orchestrate a planned attack on Jews in New York City on behalf of ISIS.
Muhammad Shahzeb Kahn, 20, demonstrated his allegiance to the Islamic State through his social media activities and interactions with undercover law enforcement agents, as stated in the complaint.
(Note: Video in the player above is from a previous report.)
In July of last year, Kahn informed one of the undercover officers about his efforts to establish an offline group with the purpose of executing a coordinated attack in a specific U.S. city using AR-style rifles.
Khan allegedly instructed the undercovers to obtain AR-style rifles, ammunition and other materials and decided the target would be a “Jewish religious center located in Brooklyn.”
According to the complaint, Khan wanted to time the attack to coincide with the anniversary of the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel.
“New York is perfect to target Jews,” the complaint quoted Khan as saying. “It has the largest Jewish population in America.”
Khan allegedly continued, “Even if we don’t attack an Event we could rack up easily a lot of Jews.” An August 2024 message concluded “we are going to NYC to slaughter them.”
Khan was arrested in Canada, where the FBI said he tried to hire someone to try and smuggle him into the US. He was stopped in September 2024 in Ormstown, 12 miles from the border.
He is now being extradited to the United States and is expected to appear in Manhattan federal court Wednesday on a charge of attempted provision of material support to terrorism.
The FBI said Khan made clear his planned attack was meant to support ISIS, allegedly saying “If we’re successful this is going to be one of the largest attacks ever on Jews outside of the Israeli territory in recent times” and adding “that too in America would be big and good propaganda victory for the Islamic State.”
(ABC News contributed to this report.)
Copyright © 2025 WABC-TV. All Rights Reserved.
