'Largest attack on US soil since 9/11': Pakistani citizen who planned terrorist attack in NY on Oct 7

A 20-year-old Pakistani citizen, residing in Canada and arrested for planning a terror attack in New York, was aiming for it to be the 'largest attack on the US soil' - analysis of his social media footprint has revealed.

Muhammad Shahzeb Khan, also known as Shazeb Jadoon, was arrested in Canada on Wednesday (Sep 4) and charged withattempting to provide material support and resources to a designated foreign terrorist organisation (FTO), the Islamic State (IS).

Khan was planning a terrorist attack in the Big Apple around October 7 - the first anniversary of Hamas' terrorist attack on Israel, according to US Attorney General Merrick B. Garland.

Khan started posting about his support for the IS in or about November last year on social media and other encrypted messaging apps.

"If we succeed with our plan, this would be the largest attack on US soil since 9/11," he said in one of the messages.

Watch |Pak man arrested for plotting attack in US on Oct 7

Khan's planning for the attack

The Pakistani national was only arrested after he started conversing with two undercover law enforcement officers. He confirmed that alongside him, a US-based IS supporter, identified as "Associate-1" in the documents, was also planning to carry out an attack in a US city.

Khan was to travel from Canada to New York where he intended to use "automatic and semi-automatic weapons to carry out a mass shooting in support of ISat a Jewish centre in Brooklyn".

Khan emphasised that “Oct 7 and Oct 11are the best days for targeting the Jews” because “Oct 7 they will surely have some protests and Oct 11 is Yom Kippur".

Khan boasted that NY was the perfect city to target Jews as it has the largest "jewish population in America" and "evenif we don't attack anevent, we could rack up easily a lot of jews".

“We are going to NYC to slaughter them," he added.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) andLos Angeles Field Offices are investigating the case.The Office of International Affairs of the Department of Justice’s Criminal Division is seeking the extradition of Khan from Canada.

If convicted, Khan faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison. A federal district court judge will determine any sentence after considering the US Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors.

(With inputs from agencies)