The U.S. Department of Justice announced that the FBI detained an 18-year-old in Idaho this past weekend after learning of his “violent plot” and “truly horrific” plan to attack churches in Coeur d’Alene on behalf of the terrorist group ISIS.
Following the FBI’s claim that Alexander Mercurio planned to “incapacitate his father, restrain him using handcuffs, and steal his firearms to use for maximum casualties” in an attack he had been planning to carry out in the northern Idaho resort city on Sunday, April 7, he is now facing a federal charge of attempting to provide material support or resources to a designated foreign terrorist organization.
In a criminal complaint, the FBI says the investigation began when Mercurio, who is a resident of Coeur d’Alene, “reached out to confidential human sources online and indicated his support for ISIS and terrorist organizations, more generally.”
“Mercurio spread ISIS propaganda online and solicited ISIS’s involvement in and approval of his propaganda efforts, discussed traveling from the United States to join ISIS, [and] considered and planned ways to support ISIS financially,” an FBI investigator wrote in the complaint.
