A 23-year-old Muslim Milwaukee resident was arrested and charged after he plotted to carry out a mass shooting to kill dozens at a Masonic temple.
Samy Mohamed Hamzeh has been charged with possession of machine guns and silencer but not terrorism.
"We will shoot them, kill them and get out," he told two confidential sources who visited the temple with him on Jan. 19 to familiarise with the place and meeting schedules, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office in Wisconsin.
According to the criminal complaint, Hamzeh declared, "We are Muslims, defending Muslim religion, we are on our own, my dear, we have organised our own group."
Hamzeh told his companions that "if this hit is executed, it will be known all over the world. Sure, all over the world, all the Mujahedeen will be talking and they will be proud of us. . . such operations will increase in America, when they hear about it."
"The people will be scared and the operations will increase, and there will be problems all over, because more than one problem took place, and this will be the third problem, this will lead to people clashing with each other. This way we will be igniting it. I mean we are marching at the front of the war," he said.
Hamzeh, according to the complaint, had been under investigation since September last year.
Last October, he planned to travel to Jordan, enter the West Bank and attack Israeli soldiers and citizens in the West Bank. He abandoned the plan and focused on attack in the U.S.
Hamzeh recently worked at a gym but was fired for being too intense, according to the Milwaukee-Wisconsin Journal Sentinel.
He appeared in a Milwaukee court Tuesday and remains under custody.
He planned to attack the Humphrey Scottish Rite Masonic Center, a building in downtown Milwaukee that hosts weddings, conferences and meetings.
Hamzeh planned to buy machine guns and silencers from two people who were undercover FBI agents. He met them last Jan. 25 along with the two confidential sources.
The agents showed him the weapons and Hamzeh paid for it. He placed the bag containing the weapons in the trunk of his car after which he was arrested and charged.
In his conversations with the confidential sources after visiting the temple, Hamzeh told them, "I am telling you, as I was saying, all three of us get in together, one will go, to the one that is staying at the reception."
"If she was alone, it is okay, if there were two of them, shoot both of them, do not let the blood show, shoot her from the bottom, two or three shots in her stomach and let her sit on the chair and push her to the front, as if she is sleeping, did you understand? Then stay downstairs, the other two will take the lift to the third floor, go directly to the room, open the door, shoot everyone, move fast even avoiding the lift and take the stairs running down."
"And we will eliminate everyone," he vowed.
