Former Michigan guardsmen detained for planning Islamic State-inspired attack on military base
A Cross-Post from Bill Roggio's Long War Journal
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On May 13, Ammar Abdulmajid-Mohamed Said, 19, a former member of the Michigan Army National Guard, was detained for planning a mass casualty attack on the United States Army’s Tank-Automotive and Armaments Command (TACOM) on behalf of the Islamic State, a foreign terrorist organization. Said is charged with providing material support to a terrorist organization and distributing information related to a destructive device. If convicted, he faces up to 20 years in prison.
“ISIS [Islamic State of Iraq and al Sham] is a brutal terrorist organization which seeks to kill Americans. Helping ISIS or any other terrorist organization prepare or carry out acts of violence is not only a reprehensible crime—it is a threat to our entire nation and way of life,” said US Attorney Jerome F. Gorgon Jr. for the Eastern District of Michigan.
Said reportedly told undercover law enforcement officials of his plan to attack the Detroit arsenal. According to the complaint, he planned to use armor-piercing ammunition and Molotov cocktails. Said, from Melvindale, Michigan, used a drone to surveil the base and informed the officers on how to enter the facility and which building to target.
Said entered active duty in September 2022 and separated from the military in December 2024 after failing to complete the initial enrollment requirements. On July 18, 2024, law enforcement officials searched his phone after Said provided it to Michigan Army National Guard personnel before he boarded a military aircraft. The search yielded text messages in Arabic on Facebook and Telegram in which Said told users of his desire to join the Islamic State.
During Said’s months-long relationship with undercover law enforcement officials pretending to be IS supporters, Said admitted to joining the Army for weapons training and bragged that he could assemble and reassemble a weapon in the dark.
“The arrest of this former soldier is a sobering reminder of the importance of our counterintelligence efforts to identify and disrupt those who would seek to harm our nation,” said Brigadier General Rhett R. Cox, the commanding general of Army Counterintelligence Command.
Radical Islamic terrorists often try to recruit Muslim servicemembers to conduct attacks, likely due to their training and access to federal facilities. In 2009, Major Nidal Hassan killed 13 people at a processing center in Fort Hood, Texas. Shockingly, Hassan was not charged with terrorism, despite his long relationship with the late Al Qaeda recruiter Anwar al Awakei.
Said is the fourth individual detained for involvement with the Islamic State this year, underscoring the jihadist group’s resiliency. Said is also the second veteran to be implicated in a domestic terror attack. Of note, in January 2025, Shamsud-Din Jabbar, who served with the US Army in Afghanistan, killed 14 people after he drove his truck into a crowded street of revelers on Bourbon Street in New Orleans, Louisiana.
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Wow, I’m super familiar with the facility. We just knew it as the Warren Tank Plant. My older cousin, after his time in the Marines, got an engineering degree and worked there for many years. Retired now, in fact. They filmed that legendary Dukakis commercial where he all riding in a tank there too.