COEUR d’ALENE, Idaho. — An 18-year-old man accused of planning to attack churches in a northern Idaho town in support of Islamic State has denied pleading guilty to a federal terrorism charge.
Alexander Mercurio appeared in U.S. District Court in Idaho on Wednesday and pleaded not guilty to a charge of attempting to provide material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization, the Coeur d’Alene Press reported.
Prosecutors say he planned to use a metal pipe, butane fuel, a machete and, if he could get one, his father’s guns in the attack. Mercurio was arrested Saturday, the day before investigators believe he planned to attack people attending a church near his home in Coeur d’Alene.
Authorities say Mercurio adopted the Muslim faith against the wishes of his Christian parents and had been communicating for two years with FBI informants posing as Islamic State supporters.
Mercurio told an informant that he planned to kill his father with the pipe, handcuff him and steal his guns and a car to carry out his plan, according to the affidavit of an FBI agent in the case .
His father’s weapons included rifles, pistols and ammunition locked in a cupboard, but Mercurio planned to attack with the pipe, fire and knives if he couldn’t get the firearms, the affidavit alleged FBI Task Force Officer John Taylor II.
Mercurio said in an audio recording he gave to the informant that if he could get access to the weapons, “everything would be so much easier and better and I would achieve better things,” according to the statement.
After attacking the church, Mercurio told the informant that he planned to attack others in the city before being martyred, the statement said.
Mercurio told a confidential informant that he first came into contact with the Islamic State group during the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic when schools were closed, Taylor said, and investigators later found files on his school-issued laptop that the group’s extremist ideology was described.
According to the statement, Mercurio eventually became concerned that he was a hypocrite because he had not yet launched an attack.
“I have stopped asking and praying for martyrdom because I don’t feel like I want to fight and die for the sake of Allah. I just want to die and all my problems will disappear,” he wrote in a message to the informant, the statement said.
On March 21, Mercurio sent another direct message to the informant, saying he was restless and frustrated and wondered how long he could continue living “in such a humiliated and shameful state,” the statement alleged.
“I have nothing but motivation for fighting… such as a time of insatiable bloodlust for the lifeblood of these idolaters; a desire for chaos and murder to terrorize those around me. I need better weapons than knives,” the direct message read, according to the statement.
Law enforcement officers arrested Mercurio after he sent an audio file pledging his allegiance to the Islamic State, the statement said.
If found guilty, Mercurio could face up to 20 years in prison. His trial is scheduled for May 28.
The Islamic State group took control of much of the territory in Syria and Iraq in 2014 and was largely defeated on the battlefield by 2018. However, it maintains desert shelters in both countries and its regional partners are active in Afghanistan, West Africa and the United States. Far East. Islamic State Khorasan claimed responsibility for last month’s shooting at a Moscow concert hall that killed 145 people, Russia’s deadliest attack in years.