Kids were being trained to be school shooters at a dirty New Mexico compound

Authorities say the man arrested for keeping 11 children in a dirty New Mexico compound was trying to train them to commit school shootings, according to court documents reviewed by the Associated Press.

Police say Siraj Ibn Wahhaj conducted weapons training with the children at the compound, according to the document filed Wednesday. Almost one dozen children between the ages of 1 and 15 were rescued when authorities stormed the property on Friday, where they also discovered the remains of a boy.

The documents were filed by prosecutors in a motion asking that Wahhaj, who was charged along with four others for child abuse, be held without bail.

Wahhaj had been wanted by police since December, when he took his three year old son from his son's mother's home in Jonesboro, Georgia, apparently to perform an exorcism. Wahhaj is also the son of a Brooklyn imam who was an unindicted co-conspirator in a terrorist plot to bomb New York City in 1993.

Wahhaj’s son, who reportedly suffered from seizures, wasn’t found among the 11 children, and further information on the remains of the 12th child has not yet been released

When Wahhaj and the other adults were arrested, he was found “heavily armed with an AR15 rifle, five loaded 30 round magazines, and four loaded pistols, including one in his pocket when he was taken down,” Taos County Sheriff Jerry Hogrefe said, adding that the children “looked like third world country refugees with not only with no food or fresh water, but with no shoes, personal hygiene and basically dirty rags for clothing.” The only food on the property was potatoes and rice.

Tyler Anderson, a 41-year-old neighbor, told the AP that he thought they were just a normal group trying to disconnect.

“We just figured they were doing what we were doing, getting a piece of land and getting off the grid,” Anderson told the news outlet. Then he noticed the children weren’t playing outside anymore. After the raid, Anderson checked out the property again.

“I was flabbergasted from what it had turned into from the last time I saw it,” he told the news outlet.

Cover image: Lucas Morton, left, and Siraj Wahhaj, right, via the Taos County Sheriff's Department