GOP Senate hopeful sounds alarm after alleged Mall of America terror plot thwarted

Republican Senate nominee Michele Tafoya says people in her home state of Minnesota "feel under a level of threat" after the FBI arrested an 18-year-old who allegedly pledged allegiance to ISIS and discussed carrying out a mass shooting at the Mall of America.

Tafoya, who is aiming to flip a Democrat-controlled open Senate seat as she faces off against Democratic Lt.

Gov.

Peggy Flanagan in the midterm elections , praised authorities in an X post, writing, "Thank you to @FBIMinneapolis and law enforcement for stopping a potential mass-casualty attack." But she also pointed to the midterms as she argued, "This November, the choice is clear: law and order or more of the same.

Common sense or chaos." Authorities said Sheikhdoon Abdullahi Mohamud had been under investigation for nearly two years before he was arrested on the spot after buying an AK-47-style rifle, magazines and ammunition from an undercover FBI employee.

FBI: MALL OF AMERICA TERROR PLOT THWARTED "This was a radicalized young man who needed to be watched," U.S.

Attorney Daniel Rosen said Wednesday at a news conference.

Rosen added that agents "were able to detect a threat and disrupt it before the defendant carried out his intention to kill, in his words, maybe 30 to 60 people." Mohamud, according to an FBI agent's sworn complaint, repeatedly affirmed in chat messages to the informant that he intended to attack and kill non-Muslims at the mall on Oct.

24, the date of a scheduled Hmong arts celebration.

The Hmong are an ethnic group from East and Southeast Asia with a large community in Minnesota." Tafoya, in a Fox News Digital interview, said, "I hear a lot of concerns from Minnesotans on the campaign trail about crime, and no matter what form that crime takes, Minnesotans know that they feel under a level of threat that has increased lately here in Minnesota.

"And in the last week and just today, we saw the arrest of an 18-year-old ...

American citizen to Somali parents arrested for ... planning a terrorist attack at the Mall of America," Tafoya said, as she referred not only to the thwarting of the terror plot, but also a recent spate of gang gun violence tied to what some in local law enforcement say are members of "the Somali American community." DEMOCRACY ’26: STAY UP TO DATE WITH THE FOX NEWS ELECTION HUB "He basically stated that he wanted to take out anyone who was not a Muslim.

He also noted that the Mall of America is owned by people who are Jewish," Tafoya added.

"Again, he is of Somalian descent, and terror is alive and well.