The felony criticism towards Alexander Scott Mercurio is photographed on Tuesday, April 9, 2024.

Jenny Kane/AP

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Jenny Kane/AP

The felony criticism towards Alexander Scott Mercurio is photographed on Tuesday, April 9, 2024.

Jenny Kane/AP

BOISE, Idaho — An 18-year-old man deliberate to assault church buildings in a northern Idaho metropolis utilizing a steel pipe, butane gas, a machete and, if he might get them, his father’s weapons, in accordance with federal prosecutors who charged him with trying to supply materials assist to the Islamic State group.

Authorities stated Alexander Scott Mercurio adopted the Muslim religion towards his Christian mother and father’ needs and was in touch with FBI informants posing as Islamic State group supporters.

Mercurio was arrested Saturday, the day earlier than investigators consider he deliberate to hold out the assault. Phone messages left for a relative and for his protection attorneys on the Federal Defenders of Eastern Washington & Idaho weren’t instantly returned Tuesday. Mercurio didn’t instantly reply to an e-mail by means of a jail inmate e-mail system.

Mercurio instructed one informant he meant to incapacitate his father with the pipe, handcuff him and steal his weapons and a automobile to hold out the assault in Coeur d’Alene, in accordance with an FBI agent’s sworn assertion within the case unsealed Monday in U.S. District Court.

The weapons included rifles, handguns and ammunition his father saved in a locked closet, however Mercurio nonetheless deliberate to assault with the pipe, fireplace and knives if he could not get the firearms, alleged the sworn assertion by FBI process drive officer John Taylor II.

If he might get the important thing and entry the closet, Mercurio stated in an audio recording he gave the informant, “everything will be so much easier and better and I will achieve better things,” in accordance with the assertion.

The recording was to accompany a photograph the informant took of Mercurio in entrance of the IS flag holding up a knife and his index finger in a gesture generally utilized by the group, the assertion alleged.

After attacking the church, Mercurio instructed the informant he deliberate to assault others on the town — as many as 21 — earlier than being killed in an act of martyrdom, in accordance with the assertion.

Mercurio talked with confidential informants over a two-year span and at one level tried to construct an explosive vest to put on throughout the assaults, the assertion alleged.

Mercurio instructed a confidential informant that he first related with IS throughout the begin of the COVID-19 pandemic, when colleges had been closed, Taylor stated, and investigators later discovered a number of information on his school-issued laptop computer detailing IS’s extremist ideology. Mercurio’s mother and father disapproved of his beliefs, he allegedly instructed a confidential informant posing as an IS supporter, and Mercurio ultimately started to fret that he was a hypocrite for not but finishing up an assault, in accordance with the assertion.

“I’ve stopped asking and praying for martyrdom because I don’t feel like I want to fight and die for the sake of Allah, I just want to die and have all my problems go away,” he wrote in a message to the informant, in accordance with the assertion.

On March 21, Mercurio despatched a direct message to the informant once more, saying he was stressed, pissed off and puzzled how lengthy he might hold residing “in such a humiliated and shameful state,” the assertion alleged.

“I have motivation for nothing but fighting … like some time of insatiable bloodlust for the life juice of these idolators; a craving for mayhem and murder to terrorize those around me. I need some better weapons than knives,” the direct message stated, in accordance with the assertion.

Law enforcement moved to arrest Mercurio after he despatched an audio file pledging his allegiance to the IS, the assertion alleged.

“Thanks to the investigative efforts of the FBI, the defendant was taken into custody before he could act, and he is now charged with attempting to support ISIS’s mission of terror and violence,” Attorney General Merrick Garland wrote in a press launch. “The Justice Department will continue to relentlessly pursue, disrupt, and hold accountable those who would commit acts of terrorism against the people and interests of the United States.”

If convicted, Mercurio might be sentenced to as much as 20 years in jail. Mercurio has not but had a possibility to enter a plea. He is being held in a northern Idaho jail whereas he awaits his first court docket look, scheduled for late Wednesday morning.

The Islamic State group took management of a giant swath of territory in Syria and Iraq in 2014 and had been largely defeated on the battlefield by 2018. However, it maintains desert hideouts in each nations and its regional associates function in Afghanistan, West Africa and the Far East. IS claimed accountability for final month’s Moscow live performance corridor assault that killed 145 individuals, probably the most lethal assault in Russia in years.