FBI says man was planning mass shooting at army site in suburban Detroit

Ed White · CBC

· Posted: May 14, 2025 6:38 PM EDT | Last Updated: 6 hours ago

A 19-year-old antheral was arrested aft spending months readying an onslaught against a U.S. Army tract successful suburban Detroit on behalf of the Islamic State group, authorities said Wednesday.

Ammar Said was readying to person different idiosyncratic perpetrate a wide shooting astatine the Army's Tank-Automotive and Armaments Command successful Warren, but helium didn't cognize that 2 expected allies were undercover FBI employees keeping way of each step, the authorities said.

Investigators recorded audio and video images of their meetings with Said, including handwritten diagrams of the site, which is known arsenic TACOM and the Detroit Arsenal.

Said, a caller subordinate of the Michigan Army National Guard, was arrested Tuesday soon aft launching a drone for a last look earlier an attack, the FBI said successful a tribunal filing.

"Helping ISIS oregon immoderate different violent enactment hole oregon transportation retired acts of unit is not lone a reprehensible transgression — it is simply a menace to our full federation and mode of life," U.S. Attorney Jerome Gorgon Jr. said.

The FBI said Said planned to nonstop 1 of the undercover agents into TACOM with Molotov cocktails and assault-style weapons.

Said, a Detroit-area resident, appeared successful tribunal Wednesday connected charges of attempting to supply worldly enactment to a violent enactment and distributing accusation related to a destructive device. He agreed to stay successful custody without bond.

Senad Ramovic, a lawyer who represented Said during the little appearance, declined to comment.

TACOM employs thousands of radical and manages the Army's crushed instrumentality proviso chain. It says it is the lone active-duty Army installation successful Michigan.

Said was nether probe astir a twelvemonth agone erstwhile helium told an undercover FBI worker astir a "longstanding tendency to prosecute successful convulsive jihad," oregon war, either overseas oregon successful the U.S., the FBI said.

Authorities past July performed a concealed hunt of his phone, which helium had turned implicit to National Guard unit earlier boarding a subject aircraft. The FBI said it recovered references to jihad and images of Islamic State flags.