In the wake of the New Year’s eve terrorist attack in New Orleans, the U.S. Department of Justice announced the arrest of a U.S. citizen closer to home who allegedly planned to join another terrorist organization. Jack Danaher Molloy, a former army soldier and dual-citizen of the U.S. and Ireland who resided in the Pittsburgh area, was arrested and indicted by a grand jury this past week on charges of attempting to support the foreign terrorist organization Hezbollah and making false statements involving international terrorism to a department or agency of the United States.
Allegedly, Molloy traveled to both Lebanon and Syria between August and October last fall with the intent of joining Hezbollah. While in Lebanon, he was told that he needed to do more before joining the organization, influencing his decision to go to Syria. Once he got back to the states, Molloy continued to have ongoing conversations with Hezbollah members in Lebanon, as well as other individuals online.
According to the DoJ, Molloy wanted to join Hezbollah due to his deep rooted antisemitism. His username on X was named “KIKEKILLER313”, and told a family member that his “master plan was to join Hezbollah and kill Jews,” on Whatsapp. While living in Upper St. Clair, a suburb 30 minutes outside Pittsburgh, he also allegedly found a website that supposedly knew the incarceration location of the Tree of Life Synagogue shooter, Robert Bowers.
When questioned by the FBI after landing at the Pittsburgh International Airport, Molloy denied having current or future plans to become involved with Hezbollah or meeting with anyone in Syria. He was arrested in Chicago on Dec. 6, and faces a maximum of 20 years in prison for a material support charge and eight years in prison with a $250,000 fine for the false statement charges.
Molloy’s extremism seems to be all over the place, including veering into far-right ideologies. As the ADL pointed out on X, “Federal agents also allegedly found similar images & videos on Molloy’s phone, such as a Jewish man being executed; a meme depicting Pepe the Frog in a shirt bearing a swastika, shooting a Jewish man in the head; & a graphic showing men in Hezbollah uniforms performing a Nazi-like salute with the Lebanese flag in the background.” (Read more details in the DOJ’s affidavit.)
According to the Council of Foreign relations, Hezbollah is an Iranian backed Shiite extremist militant group and political party in Lebanon. Founded during the Lebanese civil war, the group’s deadly attacks on Israel and U.S. embassies across the world throughout the 1990’s lead the the United States designating them as a terrorist organization. In recent years, the group supported Bashar al-Assad’s regime during the Syrian civil war, and has traded attacks with Israel following Hamas’s terrorist attack on October 7, 2023.
