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Amalia, New Mexico compound: 11 children and a terror plot

On Aug. 3, 2018, deputies raided a compound in Amalia, New Mexico (sometimes misremembered as Arizona) and found 11 hungry children. They later found the remains of a kidnapped 3-year-old. Prosecutors said children were being trained for school shootings, and in 2023-24 five adults were convicted federally, four of them sentenced to life.

Aug 3, 2018 ·

What the record shows

The Taos County Sheriff's Office raided the Amalia compound on Aug. 3, 2018, and found 11 children aged 1 to 15 in filthy conditions. On Aug. 6, searchers found the remains of Abdul-Ghani Wahhaj, who had been abducted from his mother in Georgia in December 2017 and, DOJ later said, died on Christmas Eve 2017. In court filings, prosecutors said Siraj Ibn Wahhaj was training children at the compound to commit school shootings. State charges against several defendants were dismissed in 2018 for missed deadlines, and federal terrorism and kidnapping charges followed. On Oct. 17, 2023, a federal jury convicted Siraj Wahhaj and Lucas Morton of terrorism conspiracy, and convicted Hujrah Wahhaj, Subhanah Wahhaj and Morton of kidnapping resulting in death. In March 2024, all four were sentenced to life, and Jany Leveille received 15 years under a plea deal. DOJ said the group planned to use the child in a scheme to rid the world of supposedly corrupt institutions, including the FBI, CIA and military.

What the record doesn’t support

AP, CBS, NBC and other national outlets covered the case in 2018 and the 2024 sentencings, so it was not ignored. Whether it got less attention than comparable cases is a judgment call that this record does not measure. The school-shooting training claim came from prosecutors' filings and a defense attorney questioned it at the time; the federal convictions were for terrorism conspiracy and kidnapping, not school-shooting training.

Sources

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