Idaho Teen Pledged Loyalty to ISIS, Planned to Attack Churches Before His Arrest

Eighteen-year-old Alexander Scott Mercurio planned to execute an attack on American soil in the name of ISIS. He was arrested Saturday and charged in the federal district of Idaho court with providing support to a terrorist organization. 

As of Tuesday afternoon, Mercurio did not have an attorney listed in the federal court system. He remained in the Kootenai County jail in Coeur d’Alene. He was just a few days away from executing an attack on churchgoers in the name of ISIS. 

His planning took months. According to court documents, he explained his plan to a man in a hotel. That man turned out to be an FBI informant. 

He planned to walk to a church from his home in Coeur d’Alene, kneecap churchgoers with a metal pipe, kill them with a knife, set off fires using small butane canisters, and then try to wrestle a gun away from a police officer when police arrived on the scene. 

His goal was to kill as many people as he could before dying by suicide or by law enforcement. 

Fortunately, he was arrested and charged before he could conduct his horrifying attack.

“Thanks to the investigative efforts of the FBI, the defendant was taken into custody before he could act, and he is now charged with attempting to support ISIS’s mission of terror and violence,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a news release.

He admitted he previously was drawn to white supremacists but decided ISIS was a better fit for him.

Mercurio told an FBI informant he started diving into ISIS ideology while schools were closed during the height of the COVID pandemic, Idaho-based FBI agent John H. Taylor II wrote in the teen’s criminal complaint. Mercurio said his parents were not happy and he had to hide his beliefs from them. He added that he had previously “drank the Kool-Aid” of White supremacy but turned to ISIS after deciding it had more purpose for him.

Yikes. What a tale. It looks like another terrible story from when students were locked at home and learning online during the pandemic. Good job, everybody. 

ISIS is still with us. It is a former al-Qaeda affiliate. About a decade ago, it declared the establishment of a caliphate in Syria and Iraq. Since then it has lost control of much of its territory. But, it isn’t gone.

The United States has a mission to defeat ISIS in Iraq and Syria. 2,500 fighters at large have conducted 94 missions with 18 operatives killed and 63 operatives detained. Trump defeated the caliphate during his time in office. Now it is a growing menace and threat. It’s like playing whack-a-mole. ISIS fighters are taken out and new ones crop up to replace them. 

Self-radicalization is a real threat in some communities in America, 

The FBI was investigating a network that launders money for ISIS when agents came across Mercurio. Taylor wrote that Mercurio and others who were not named in the complaint had been raising money for the terrorist group, including through cryptocurrency.

Agents came into contact with Mercurio in 2022, connecting with him through a profile they had created with the same username as an ISIS fundraiser who deleted their account. The teen believed he was chatting with the previous person and spoke with FBI sources for months.

He described having suicidal ideations, at times wavering over how far he wanted to take his new extremist beliefs. In December, he wrote that he was upset with himself for sinning, adding: “I’ve stopped asking and praying for martyrdom because I don’t feel like I want to fight and die for the sake of Allah, I just want to die and have all my problems go away.”

The situation escalated early this year, officials said, when Mercurio said he planned to carry out a suicide attack at least one church. At one point, he spoke about making a flaming sword. He also described “some kind of insatiable bloodlust for the life of these idolaters; a craving for mayhem and murder to terrorize those around me.”

By February, Mercurio said he had the tools he needed but was wavering because he was still attached to worldly life. He was confused. He spoke about bloodlust and the desire to create mayhem and murder churchgoers. He hoped to carry out a successful plan to gain fame and notoriety.

Instead, he now faces 20 years in federal prison, if convicted. This story should send a shiver up the spine of everyone. Something truly horrific has been avoided.