WASHINGTON — On Friday, Kash Patel, the Director of the FBI, revealed that the agency had managed to intercept and halt a “potential terrorist attack” just days before it was set to occur. Multiple individuals have been apprehended in connection with this alleged plan.

“This morning, the FBI prevented a potential terrorist attack and took into custody several individuals in Michigan who were suspected of orchestrating a violent assault over the Halloween weekend,” Patel shared via a post on X on Friday morning.

Although further specifics about the foiled attack were not disclosed at the time, Patel assured the public that more details would be forthcoming.

This announcement from Patel highlights yet another instance in recent years where a significant threat to Michigan has been averted through timely intervention.

Earlier this year, the FBI arrested 19-year-old Ammar Abdulmajid-Mohamed Said, a former member of the Michigan Army National Guard, in connection with a separate alleged plot to attack a U.S. Army base.

Said was arrested in May 2025 on charges including attempting to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization and distributing information related to destructive devices. 

Said had allegedly been planning an attack on the Army’s Tank-Automotive & Armaments Command facility, also known as the Detroit arsenal, for months. 

Undercover FBI agents posing as ISIS sympathizers worked their way into Said’s network, the agency said, and Said allegedly shared detailed plans of his attack with them. 

“On May 13 – the scheduled day of the attack – Said was arrested after he traveled to an area near (the base) and launched his drone in support of the attack plan,” the FBI wrote in a press release.

 In 2020, a group of men were arrested while preparing to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer as revenge for the COVID-19 restrictions her administration had placed on the state. 

The FBI, which stopped that attack before the governor was injured, arrested 13 people in connection with the conspiracy. Of those, 11 were convicted. 

Whitmer wasn’t physically harmed, and the members of the conspiracy, which included several people with ties to domestic militia groups, were arrested in fall 2020 by FBI agents embedded in the group.

“They had no real plan for what to do with the governor if they actually seized her. Paradoxically, this made them more dangerous, not less,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Nils Kessler said in a court filing submitted during one of the men’s trials.

The alleged terrorist plot in Michigan is another example of a rising tide of political violence in the U.S. 

Charlie Kirk, who started the Arizona-based political organization Turning Point USA and had been a leader rallying young conservatives for Trump, died Sept. 10 after he was shot during an outdoor event at Utah Valley University.

On June 14, Democrat Melissa Hortman, Minnesota’s state House speaker, and her husband were shot to death in their suburban Minneapolis home in what authorities called an act of targeted political violence.

In April, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, his family and guests fled the governor’s mansion in Harrisburg after a man broke into the home and set a fire that caused significant damage. It happened during the Jewish holiday of Passover, and Shapiro is Jewish.

Last year, Trump was the target of an assassination attempt during an election campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, where he was shot in the ear.