BOISE.- A teenager planned to attack churches in a northern city Idaho using a metal pipe, butane gas, a machete and, if he could get them, his father’s firearms, according to federal prosecutors who accused him of trying to provide material support to the extremist group. Islamic State.
Authorities said Alexander Scott Mercurio, 18, adopted the Islamic faith against the wishes of his Christian parents and was in contact with FBI informants who posed as supporters of the Islamic State.
Mercurio was arrested on Saturday, a day before carrying out the attack, according to investigators. It is unknown if he has a lawyer to comment on his judicial situation.
Mercurio told an informant that he intended to incapacitate his father with the pipe, handcuff him and steal his guns and car to carry out the attack in Coeur d’Alene, according to an FBI agent’s affidavit.
The weapons included rifles, handguns and ammunition that his father kept locked in a closet, but Mercurio planned to attack with the pipe, fire and knives if he couldn’t get the firearms, Agent John Taylor II said.
If he could obtain the key and access the closet, Mercurio said in an audio recording he sent to the informant, “everything will be much easier and better and I will achieve better things,” according to the statement.
The recording accompanied a photo taken by the informant in which Mercurio appeared in front of the Islamic State flag holding a knife and with his index finger in a gesture commonly used by the group.
After attacking the Iglesia, Mercurio told the informant, he planned to attack others in the city, up to 21 of them, before being killed in an act of martyrdom, according to the statement.
Mercurio spoke to confidential informants over a two-year span and at one point attempted to build an explosive vest.
Source: AP
