CHARLOTTE, N.C. — The FBI said Friday it disrupted a New Year’s Eve plot to attack a grocery store and fast-food restaurant in North Carolina, arresting a man who officials said was inspired by the Islamic State group and pledged allegiance to the extremist militants.
Christian Sturdivant, 18, was charged with attempting to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization after officials said he shared his attack plans with an undercover FBI agent posing as an encouraging confidant.
Federal agents arrested him on Wednesday. He stayed after Friday morning’s court hearing. The next hearing is scheduled for January 7. An attorney representing Sturdivant in federal court did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment Friday.
An FBI affidavit filed in the case said Sturdivant was investigated last month after information that a social media account officials linked to Sturdivant had posted pro-IS posts. These included posts that depicted a ballistic vest and appeared to promote violence, the affidavit said, and the account’s display name referred to the name of late IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.
Sturdivant began communicating on social media with someone he thought supported his plans, but who was actually an undercover FBI employee, the affidavit said.
Russ Ferguson, the U.S. attorney for western North Carolina, declined to name the grocery store and fast food restaurant that were allegedly targeted, citing the ongoing investigation. But he said they were both in Mint Hill, a small bedroom community in Charlotte.
The affidavit says Sturdivant was on the FBI’s radar in January 2022, when he was a minor, after officials learned he was in contact with an IS member in Europe and was instructed to dress in all black, knock on people’s doors and commit hammer attacks.
Sturdivant did go to the neighbor’s house armed with a hammer and knife but was restrained by his grandfather, the affidavit states.
The attack in North Carolina would come a year after 14 people were killed in New Orleans from a US citizen and army veteran who has been proclaiming his support for IS on social media.
Other IS-inspired attacks in the past decade includes a 2015 shooting rampage by a husband and wife team which killed 14 people in San Bernardino, California and 2016 massacre at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Floridaby the gunman who fatally shot 49 people.
The FBI foiled several alleged attacks through sting operations in which agents posed as terrorist supporters, providing tips and equipment. Critics say the strategy can represent entrapment mentally vulnerable people who would not have the means to act on their own.
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