Third Michigan man arrested over alleged Halloween terror plot | Michigan
Investigators say a third man in Michigan is facing allegations of planning a terrorist attack on Halloween. They said he went to a midwestern amusement park to scout the location.
Ayob Nasser, 19, was arrested on Wednesday. He is accused of taking part in planning a possible Islamic State-inspired attack on LGBTQ+ bars in suburban Detroit, federal authorities said.
According to court documents, Nasser, his brother Muhammad Ali and Majed Mahmud are accused of conspiring to provide material support and resources to a designated terrorist organization and of purchasing and transporting weapons and ammunition for terrorist purposes.
Mohmed Ali and Majed Mahmoud were arrested on Friday. Investigators said two minors, identified only as Person 1 and Person 2 in court documents, were also involved in the discussions.
US lawyer Jerome F Gorgon Jr. said in his statement, “We will not stop. We will follow the tentacles wherever they take them. We will continue to keep watch together with the FBI against terrorism.”
It is not known whether Nasser has a lawyer. Two attorneys representing Ali and Mahmoud declined to comment when reached by phone Wednesday evening, and both said they had read the 93-page amended complaint filed in federal court. One of the lawyers, Amir Makled, appeared to dismiss the allegations over the weekend, saying they were the result of “hysteria” and “fear mongering”.
Ali and Mahmoud appeared briefly in federal court Monday and will remain in custody at least until a detention hearing on Nov. 10.
FBI agents had spied on the group for weeks, even using a camera mounted on a pole outside a Dearborn home, according to the court filing. Investigators also gained access to encrypted chats and other conversations and reviewed social media posts.
Investigators searched the group’s homes, an auto repair shop run by Ali and Nasser’s family, and a warehouse rented by Ali, according to the court filing. Authorities found AR-15-style rifles, ammunition, loaded handguns and GoPro cameras, as well as tactical vests and backpacks.
The FBI said five cellular devices were also seized.
Investigators said Ali, Mahmoud and Person 1, one of the minors, visited bars in Ferndale, a northern suburb of Detroit, even though they were under the legal drinking age. The city draws tens of thousands of people to its annual Pride Parade.
Citing phone records and surveillance footage, court documents say Nasser and Person 2, a minor, went to “a midwestern amusement park approximately three hours from Dearborn, Michigan” twice in September. Investigators discovered that a computer at Nasser and Ali’s home had been used by someone at the amusement park asking “Is it crowded on New Year’s weekend?” He says that he revealed that he made a search.
The name of the amusement park is not included in the documents. But Cedar Point, an amusement park near Cleveland, Ohio, appears to fit the description and Halloween hours outlined in the complaint.
In the new court filing, investigators said a group chat between the men appeared to indicate a Halloween attack, with repeated references to pumpkins and pumpkin emojis. In the group chat, one of the unnamed co-conspirators wrote “American Jewish Center,” to which Nasser replied, “pumpkin sounds good now.”
The court filing states that minor Person 1 regularly consulted the father of a “local Islamic extremist ideologue” about when to do a “favor.”
Phone records also showed group members seeking information about several mass murders, including the 2016 Pulse nightclub shooting, the 2022 Buffalo supermarket shooting, the 2023 Nashville Covenant School shooting and the deadly 2025 New Orleans truck attack.
