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CNA Staff, Nov 11, 2025 / 11:40 am (CNA).
An Arizona man will serve more than half a decade in prison after he carried out multiple hoax bomb threats at churches in the western U.S.
The U.S. Department of Justice said in a press release that 46-year-old Phoenix resident Zimnako Salah would spend six years in prison after his 2025 conviction in the terror plot.
From September to November 2023 Salah “traveled to four Christian churches in Arizona, California, and Colorado” with black backpacks, according to the Department of Justice. At two churches he was turned away by security, while at two others he “planted” the backpacks, causing congregants to believe they contained bombs, the Justice Department said.
Though the planted backpacks were in fact hoaxes, Salah reportedly had “been building a bomb capable of fitting in a backpack,” the department said. FBI investigators said they seized “component parts of an improvised explosive device” from a storage unit being rented by Salah.
Salah also had been actively searching for “extremist propaganda online,” the government said, including searches for videos such as “infidels dying.”
The jury that convicted Salah in 2025 found that he “targeted the church because of the religion of the people who worshipped there, making the offense a hate crime.”
U.S. District Judge Dena Coggins levied a $10,000 fine against Salah, telling him he “failed to take responsibility for [his] actions.”
U.S. Attorney Eric Grant said Salah’s ultimate goal appeared to be “many deaths and injuries.”
“Thanks to the action of church security, local law enforcement, and the FBI, this defendant was stopped before he had a chance to carry out the crimes he sought to commit,” he said.
Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon, meanwhile, said in the press release that criminals “who target people because of their faith will face the full force of federal law.”
“The Department of Justice will continue to protect the rights of all people of faith to worship and live free from fear, and we will hold accountable anyone who threatens or harms them,” she said.
