A Pakistani citizen has been arrested and charged with planning a terror attack in New York City with the goal of killing as many Jewish people as possible, the Department of Justice announced.
Muhammad Shahzeb Khan, 20, a Pakistani national living in Canada, was taken into custody on Sept. 4 and "charged with attempting to provide material support and resources to a designated foreign terrorist organization (FTO), the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS)," federal prosecutors said.
Prosecutors said Khan wanted to plan the attack around Oct. 7, 2024, the one-year anniversary of Hamas' attack on a music festival in Israel that killed at least 1,200 people, mostly civilians.
“The defendant is alleged to have planned a terrorist attack in New York City around October 7th of this year with the stated goal of slaughtering, in the name of ISIS, as many Jewish people as possible,” said Attorney General Merrick Garland in a statement.
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According to the criminal complaint, Khan told undercover law enforcement officers he was planning to target a Jewish center in Brooklyn saying "'New York is perfect to target Jews because it has the 'largest Jewish population In America.'"
Khan attempted to cross the U.S.-Canada border where he planned to use automatic and semi-automatic weapons to carry out a "mass shooting," prosecutors said. The complaint alleges Khan looked for rental properties close to his proposed target in Brooklyn and was planning to pay a human smuggler to help him get into the United States.
Khan was arrested 12 miles from the border with the United States.
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During one communication to the undercover officers, Khan said “if we succeed with our plan this would be the largest Attack on US soil since 9/11," the complaint alleges.
A senior official told NBC New York that Khan had been under 24/7 surveillance and that he did not have any means of carrying out the attack on his own.
If convicted, Khan faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.
The FBI is continuing its investigation into Khan's alleged actions. It's unclear if Khan has a lawyer, the Associated Press reported.
