SAN JOSE MERCURY: Video shows Oakland man telling FBI he wanted to kill 10,000 in Bay Area.

An Oakland man hoped to kill 10,000 Bay Area residents, according to court records that reveal a chilling plan of planting bombs around Oakland and UC Berkeley, blowing up a gay bar in San Francisco, setting arson fires around the Berkeley hills and distributing poisoned cocaine in local night clubs.

Amer Alhaggagi, whose last name is also spelled “Al-Haggagi” in court records, was caught on video discussing the plots with an undercover FBI agent.

Alhaggagi pleaded guilty in July to attempting to give material aid to a terrorist organization, stemming from when he helped set up propaganda social media accounts for people connected to the Islamic State, known as ISIL and ISIS. He also pleaded guilty to three identity-theft counts. He appeared in federal court Monday for a sentencing hearing, which was continued to next month.

“I want to make it to a point where every American here thinks twice or three times before he leaves his home,” Alhaggagi said on the video, which was obtained by KQED. “Like, ‘Is it necessary for me to leave right now?’ That’s how I want it to be.”

But in a letter to the court, Alhaggagi claimed the purported plots were fantasies he concocted out of boredom and said he had no intentions of committing terrorism.

“Everything was a joke to me, … I didn’t think anyone was taking me seriously,” Alhaggagi wrote to the court.

Read the whole thing. The Merc’s article doesn’t seem to describe Alhaggagi as a modern-day Merry Prankster.