Mass shooting at US Masonic Temple thwarted

US authorities say a planned mass shooting at a Masonic Temple in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, has been thwarted in an operation involving undercover FBI agents.

Samy Mohamed Hamzeh was charged Tuesday with possession of machine guns and a silencer, which he intended to use in the attack, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported.

Under investigation since September 2015, the 23-year-old man was initially planning to travel to Jordan for an attack against the neighboring Israel.

Details of his plans, which later focused on the Masonic Temple, were recorded in his telephone conversations.

"I am telling you, if this hit is executed, it will be known all over the world," Hamzeh said. "They are all Masonic; they are playing with the world like a game, man, and we are like asses, we don't know what is going on, these are the ones who are fighting… Thirty is excellent. If I got out, after killing thirty people, I will be happy 100 percent... 100 percent happy, because these 30 will terrify the world."

According to Acting US Attorney Gregory J. Haanstad, "Samy Mohamed Hamzeh devised a detailed plan to commit a mass shooting intended to kill dozens of people. He also said that he wanted this mass shooting to be 'known the world over' and to 'ignite' broader clashes. It is difficult to calculate the injury and loss of life that was prevented by concerned citizens coming forward and by the tireless efforts of the FBI and the Joint Terrorism Task Force."

Like many other similar cases, including terrorist plots by Daesh affiliates in the US, FBI undercover agents were involved in the case.

On Monday, an FBI agent sold the weapons and the silencer to Hamzeh, after which he was arrested.

According to Special Agent in Charge of the FBI Robert J. Shields, "The arrest of Samy Mohamed Hamzeh is the result of a well-coordinated undercover law enforcement action, at no time was the public's safety placed in jeopardy. I would like to commend the efforts of the Joint Terrorism Task Force which includes our local and state law enforcement partners in thwarting an attack that could have resulted in significant injury and/or loss of life."

Some, however, say the FBI frames Muslims to “create cases, and then they prevent them from happening.”

Ashraf Nubani, the lawyer of a Muslim American charged with aiding and abetting terrorism, said last week that his client was framed as a Daesh Takfiri affiliate by federal agents who target Muslim nationals by fake terror plots.

“They had three informants in this case that were looking for people to get in trouble,” Nubani told reports in Virginia on January 19, following the preliminary court hearing for Mahmoud Amin Mohamed Elhassan.

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