A former member of the Michigan Army National Guard was charged on Tuesday with plotting to carry out a terrorist attack on a U.S. military base outside Detroit for the Islamic State using a drone, Molotov cocktails and armor-piercing ammunition, the F.B.I. said.
The man, Ammar Abdulmajid-Mohamed Said, 19, was arrested outside the U.S. Army Tank-Automotive & Armaments Command in Warren, Mich., by federal agents, with whom he had been unknowingly discussing his plans since last June, according to a criminal complaint.
Investigators said that Mr. Said, of Melvindale, Mich., had shared details about a planned mass shooting with two people he thought were fellow ISIS supporters, but were instead undercover F.B.I. agents recording their conversations.
Mr. Said told them that he was “fed up with this country” and had long desired to engage in a violent jihad, either by traveling to an ISIS-held territory abroad or carrying out an attack in the United States, the authorities said.
While meeting with one of the undercover agents in November, Mr. Said mused that if he went to the Middle East, he would be able to kill only “two, three, four other soldiers, but over here, it’s like, it’s a dream.” Around December, the National Guard discharged him.
Mr. Said was charged with attempting to provide material support and resources to a designated foreign terrorist organization and distributing information related to a destructive device or explosive. The charges could bring up to 40 years in prison if he is convicted.
Brig. Gen. Rhett R. Cox, the commanding general of the Army Counterintelligence Command, said in a statement on Wednesday that Mr. Said’s arrest was a “sobering reminder” of the importance of counterintelligence efforts.
“We urge all soldiers to remain vigilant and report any suspicious activity to their chain of command, as the safety and security of our Army and our nation depends on our collective efforts to prevent insider threats,” General Cox said.
It was not immediately clear whether Mr. Said, who was scheduled to make an initial appearance in federal court in Michigan on Wednesday, had a lawyer. Court records did not list one for him. A phone message left on Wednesday with the Federal Community Defender’s office in Detroit was not immediately returned.
In 2022, Mr. Said enlisted in the National Guard and completed initial basic training at Fort Moore in Georgia, the authorities said.
Last July, about a month after Mr. Said had first spoken to one of the undercover agents, the F.B.I. secretly searched his iPhone when he gave it to National Guard personnel before boarding a military aircraft, investigators said.
They found a Facebook exchange written in Arabic between Mr. Said and someone in the Palestinian territories, in which Mr. Said declared, “I want to go for Jihad,” according to the F.B.I., which said that the other person had instructed him to use the encrypted messaging app Telegram to communicate further. One of those channels contained videos and images with ISIS flags, the complaint said.
Last August, Mr. Said played a video of himself on his phone performing a “bayah” pledge of loyalty to Abu Hafs al-Hashemi al-Qurayshi, the leader of ISIS, for one of the agents, the F.B.I. said.
In a conversation with an F.B.I. informant that same month, Mr. Said boasted that he could assemble and disassemble an AR-15 or M4-style rifle with his “eyes closed” and had learned about firearms, grenade throwing and land navigation, the complaint said.
“I wanted to train so that I know what I’m doing,” Mr. Said told one of the undercover agents, according to the F.B.I. “I know how they think, and how they act, you know.”
Last fall, Mr. Said told the undercover agents that he had flown a drone over the base outside Detroit to identify entry points and potential targets, investigators said. He also mentioned that he had visited stores to inspect firearms and military uniforms, and had purchased glass bottles to be used for Molotov cocktails, the complaint said.
The undercover agents accompanied Mr. Said to a pawnshop in the area, where he asked to see assault-style weapons that were for sale, the F.B.I. said.
“I recommend everyone have about seven magazines because you don’t want to be in there and run out of ammo,” he told the agents, according to the complaint.
But as plans for the attack became more concrete, the F.B.I. said, the former guardsman grew suspicious. In December, the agents told Mr. Said that they had discovered an Apple AirTag in their car, which he acknowledged placing there, the authorities said.
He told them that he just wanted to “make sure” they were who they said they were, according to the complaint.
In the conversations with the undercover agents, Mr. Said discussed how one of them should livestream the attack on a GoPro camera and mention Gaza and Palestine, investigators said. He also advised the agents that they should wait until they got inside the base to display an ISIS flag.
“If they see the flag, they know you are foe,” he told on the agents, according to the complaint.
On Tuesday, Mr. Said was wearing all black when he left his home to go meet one of the undercover agents at a park in Dearborn, Mich., investigators said. The two of them then drove to the Army base in Warren, where, the authorities said, Mr. Said had launched his drone for the purposes of aerial surveillance before the attack.
That’s when law enforcement officers moved in and arrested him.
Neil Vigdor covers breaking news for The Times, with a focus on politics.
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