A 19-year-old former Michigan Army National Guardsman is being detained by the FBI and charged with plotting an armed attack against a suburban Detroit military base.
The FBI reported the Tuesday arrest of Ammar Abdulmajid-Mohamed Said as he launched a drone outside the U.S. Army's Tank-Automotive & Armaments Command (TACOM) facility at the Detroit Arsenal in Warren, Michigan. TACOM is about 11 miles directly north of downtown Detroit.
Said is accused of masterminding the event in support of ISIS, and working with two undercover agents beginning in April to carry out his plan of a mass shooting at TACOM.
He's accused of supplying the overall attack plan and hardware including firebomb materials, armor-piercing ammunition, as well as flying a drone over the site for surveillance. The undercover agents reported that Said also determined which building would be the primary target of the attack.
On Tuesday, Said was arrested as he launched a drone near the base to begin the planned attack. No one at the TACOM site was injured. The DOJ has asked a judge to allow Said to be held "in pretrial detention because of his danger to the community and the risk that he will flee."
Brig. Gen. Rhett R. Cox, the commanding general of Army Counterintelligence Command, said in a DOJ release on the arrest that the case is a "sobering reminder" that any location within the U.S. is under constant threat of attack.