FBI: Wisconsin Man Bought Machine Guns, Planned Terrorist Attack

The FBI arrested a man who bought two machine guns and had plans to open fire on a Masonic temple in Milwaukee, according to a press release.

Through discussions with two confidential sources, the bureau learned that Samy Mohamed Hamzeh, 23, initially planned to travel to Jordan to attack Israeli soldiers, the FBI said.

But he abandoned those plans and shifted his focus to Milwaukee, the FBI said.

Hamzeh had been under investigation since September 2015, the release said, and during that time he explained his plans to the two sources.

“We want two machine guns, you now have one, so we want two more, and we need three silencers, that’s it,” he told them, according to the FBI. “Find out how much all together these will cost, and then we will march.”

The plan was to have one person guard the door while the other two went upstairs to carry out the attack, the FBI said.

“I am telling you, if this hit is executed, it will be known all over the world,” he said, according to the FBI. “Sure, all over the world, all the Mujahedeen will be talking and they will be proud of us.”

He met with two people to buy the machine guns who, as it turns out, were also undercover FBI agents, the FBI said.

The agents explained the functioning of the machine guns and completed the transaction, the FBI said. When Hamzeh went to put the weapons in his car, he was arrested, the FBI said.

In 2012, a gunman killed opened fire and killed six people at a temple in Oak Creek, Wisconsin.

Read the full FBI press release, which includes Hamzeh’s full plans, here.