A pair of teenage jihadists from a wealthy New Jersey suburb plotted to kill “500 Jews” and join Islamic State (IS), prosecutors allege.
Milo Sedarat, 19, and Tomas Kaan Jimenez-Guzel, 19, were taken into custody on Wednesday after the FBI linked them to a plot to bomb gay bars in Detroit in an IS-inspired attack on Hallowe’en.
The teenagers from Montclair, 20 miles from New York City, were allegedly on an encrypted messaging chat with several others, at least one of which was based in the UK, a police source told The Wall Street Journal.
The alleged scheme was foiled last week by the FBI and the NYPD’s intelligence bureau, which said the plot was intended to copy IS’s terror attack in Paris in 2015.
Mr Sedarat had bragged about being “the biggest anti-Semite in America”, ranted about wanting to murder his artist mother’s Jewish friends and posed for pictures in his $1.2m family home with swords and knives, according to court documents obtained by The New York Post.
Milo Sedarat allegedly ranted about wanting to murder his mother’s Jewish friends – U.S. District Court
He also allegedly said he wanted to ram his car into a pro-Israel march in Montclair.
Mr Jimenez-Guzel had shared images standing in front of an IS flag with a knife and had fantasised about carrying out a “Boston bombing-like attack”.
Mr Sedarat was arrested at his family’s home in Montclair, while Mr Jimenez-Guzel was picked up at Newark Liberty International Airport.
He was allegedly on the way to Turkey, en route to Syria, where he planned to train with IS, prosecutors claim.
Originally, he planned to leave on Nov 17, but brought his flight forward following the arrests of two other suspects in the gay bar bombing plot.
“In their communications, they discuss detailed travel plans, physical training, weapons, including firearms and IEDs (Improvised Explosive Devices) and methods to avoid law enforcement detection,” said Alina Habba, acting US attorney for New Jersey.
She added that the men “pledged themselves to IS and were plotting acts of terrorism in our country”.
‘They’re good kids’
The arrests shocked residents of the affluent New Jersey suburb who described seeing nearly two dozen police vehicles arrive to arrest Mr Sedarat, with officers carrying automatic rifles, according to The Daily Mail.
Mr Sedarat’s father is the son of renowned Iranian-American poet Roger Sedarat.
Meanwhile, Mr Jimenez-Guzel’s mother, Meral Guzel, serves as the head of the United Nations Women’s Entrepreneurship programme.
Both were accomplished athletes, according to the New York Post.
Mr Jimenez-Guzel had been on the high school football team, while Mr Sedarat was on the wrestling team.
Neighbours were astonished by the arrests. “They’re good kids,” one woman told the New York Post, while others described the Sedarats as “good neighbours’” and a “good family”.
‘Biggest anti-Semite in America’
However, court documents allege they fantasised about beheading infidels and killing Jews.
During a message exchange in January, Mr Sedarat supposedly said that “filthy rat Jews need to be eliminated” and called himself “the biggest anti-Semite in America”, according to The New York Post.
Months later, he said: “I hope a second Holocaust happens.”
Last November, according to the paper, he claimed his mother’s friends were brainwashing her into being a Zionist and said he was going to “stab them with my sword”.
In a video call with one of the other plotters, Mr Jimenez-Guzel allegedly volunteered to carry out beheadings and mused in another group chat about leaving “his mark in history”.
“Something that’s gonna make them create a documentary on you on Netflix. Something that’s gonna make you have a Wikipedia page,” he supposedly wrote.
Elsewhere, Mr Jimenez-Guzel is said to have boasted about becoming “one of the most 100 evil people in the world” and shared a social media post which urged Muslims to practice the “obligation” of jihad and “terrorise the disbelievers to avenge their Muslim brothers”.
If convicted of terrorism charges the two men, who were shackled when they appeared in court on Wednesday, face decades in prison and a lifetime of supervision on their release.
