(Washington) An 18-year-old American man suffering from psychiatric disorders was arrested on New Year’s Eve while planning to carry out a knife and hammer attack on behalf of the Islamic State (IS) group, American authorities announced Friday.
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Christian Sturdivant, arrested on December 31 in North Carolina, was presented Friday to a judge who ordered his continued detention until a new hearing on January 7. He is charged with “material support for a terrorist organization”, namely ISIS.
He was in contact with two people he believed to be members of the Islamic State but who were in reality undercover agents of the FBI, the American federal police, said federal prosecutor Russ Ferguson during a press conference.
It was with the first of these agents that he “made allegiance to ISIS”, confiding to him his plans to “soon wage jihad”, explained Mr. Ferguson.
GASTON COUNTY SHERIFF’S OFFICE PHOTO, PROVIDED BY THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Christian Sturdivant
To the second agent, he revealed his intentions to carry out an attack in a grocery store and a fast-food restaurant in Mint Hill, the town in North Carolina where he lived, according to the same source.
“He said he was going to wear a Kevlar suit and attack people with knives and hammers,” the prosecutor continued, noting that the planned date for this attack was New Year’s Eve.
Christian Sturdivant had been known to the FBI since 2022, when he was still a minor, due to his links via social media with an “unidentified ISIS member,” said Special Agent James Barnacle.
But no prosecution was initiated at the time and he received psychological treatment, before police authorities were alerted again in December about his online activities, he added.
Since these alerts, he was under permanent surveillance by the FBI with a view to his arrest, “the population was therefore never in danger,” assured prosecutor Ferguson.
