Idaho teen faces federal terrorism charge in alleged church attack plot

A teenager planned to attack churches in a northern Idaho city using a metal pipe, butane fuel, a machete and, if he could get them, his father's guns, according to federal prosecutors who charged him with attempting to provide material support to the Islamic State group.

Authorities said Alexander Scott Mercurio, 18, adopted the Muslim faith against his Christian parents' wishes and was in contact with FBI informants posing as Islamic State group supporters.

Mercurio was arrested Saturday, the day before investigators believe he planned to carry out the attack. Phone messages left for a relative and for his defense attorneys at the Federal Defenders of Eastern Washington & Idaho were not immediately returned Tuesday. Mercurio did not immediately respond to an email through a jail inmate email system.

Mercurio told one informant he intended to incapacitate his father with the pipe, handcuff him and steal his guns and a car to carry out the attack in Coeur d'Alene, according to an FBI agent's sworn statement in the case unsealed Monday in U.S. District Court.

The guns included rifles, handguns and ammunition his father kept in a locked closet, but Mercurio still planned to attack with the pipe, fire and knives if he couldn't get the firearms, alleged the sworn statement by FBI task force officer John Taylor II.

If he could get the key and access the closet, Mercurio said in an audio recording he gave the informant, “everything will be so much easier and better and I will achieve better things,” according to the statement.

The recording was to accompany a photo the informant took of Mercurio in front of the IS flag holding up a knife and his index finger in a gesture commonly used by the group, the statement alleged.

After attacking the church, Mercurio told the informant he planned to attack others in town — as many as 21 — before being killed in an act of martyrdom, according to the statement.

Mercurio talked with confidential informants over a two-year span and at one point tried to build an explosive vest to wear during the attacks, the statement alleged.

Mercurio told a confidential informant that he first connected with IS during the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, when schools were closed, Taylor said, and investigators later found several files on his school-issued laptop detailing IS's extremist ideology. Mercurio's parents disapproved of his beliefs, he allegedly told a confidential informant posing as an IS supporter, and Mercurio eventually began to worry that he was a hypocrite for not yet carrying out an attack, according to the statement.