Preppy wannabe jihadis planned to slaughter Jews in Michigan, join ISIS

One defendant was arrested at Newark airport as he reportedly tried to travel to Syria, hoping to find refuge in ISIS-controlled territory.

By World Israel News Staff

Two men in their late teens from an upscale New Jersey suburb were arrested for their alleged role in a plot to murder Jews and carry out an ISIS-inspired terror attack on American soil.

Federal authorities say Milo Sedarat, 18, and Tomas Kaan Jimenez-Guzel, 19, were members of a cell plotting an attack intended to be carried out in Michigan in late October.

Sedarat is the son of prominent Iranian American poet and professor Roger Sedarat; Jimenez-Guzel is the son of a Turkish United Nations diplomat.

The arrests were the result of a joint operation by the FBI and the NYPD’s Intelligence Bureau. Sedarat was taken into custody at his family’s $1.2 million home in Montclair, New Jersey, while Jimenez-Guzel was arrested at Newark Liberty International Airport as he was reportedly en route to Syria to join ISIS.

Court filings indicated that Jimenez-Guzel had originally planned to fly later in November, but changed his ticket to an earlier date after learning of arrests of others allegedly tied to the plot.

According to investigators, the plot involved multiple attackers carrying out mass shootings at LGBTQ bars in the Detroit area on Halloween night.

Agents recovered media files and messages on Sedarat’s phone that revealed fantasies about slaughtering Jews. In one message to an unnamed friend, he complained that his mother’s Jewish friends were “brainwashing her into being a Zionist.” He added that he wanted to “kill her friends” and said he was going to “stab them with my sword.”

Sedarat also reportedly bragged in messages about being the “biggest antisemite in America,” sent photos of himself brandishing knives and wearing a balaclava, and wrote that he wanted to line up and execute 500 Jewish men, then “take their wives as slaves.”

Jimenez-Guzel’s messages, presented in court documents, described his ambition to “leave a mark in history” by carrying out a deadly terror attack and to be considered “one of the most 100 evil people in the world,” hoping to become notorious enough to earn a Wikipedia page.

The two attended high school together in Montclair but authorities said that they connected online with other alleged members of the cell.

“Associations that start off in the digital realm are transferring into the physical realm, which just makes it a lot easier to coordinate these kinds of plans. In this case, waves of travelers looking to go overseas to support ISIS,” Rebecca Weiner, the NYPD’s deputy commissioner for intelligence and counterterrorism, told NBC.

Weiner dismissed suggestions that the plot was mere online fantasy, stressing the defendants intended to carry out real-world atrocities.

“This was the real deal, and we were really concerned,” she said.

American antisemitismFBIISISMichiganNew JerseyNew Yorkterror plot