Malnourished children found in a remote New Mexico desert compound were being trained to carry out mass school shootings, prosecutors have said.
Five people are being held on abuse charges after eleven starving children were discovered at the squalid compound in Amalia.
Suspect in the case Siraj Ibn Wahhaj was teaching some of the children, aged one to 15, how to use weapons, according to prosecutors’ documents seen on Wednesday.
According to the documents Wahhaj was preparing them for attacks on schools, but this was not mentioned in court during the suspect's first hearing.
Officers had originally raided the site while searching for a missing four-year-old boy called Abdul-ghani Wahhaj.
Taos County Sheriff Jerry Hogrefe indicated the body appeared to be that of a boy similar in age to Abdul-ghani, who was reported missing in December after his father said he was taking him to a park near to where they lived in Georgia.
But the body has not yet been formally identified and a medical examination was under way.
The search led authorities to the compound shielded by old tyres, wooden pallets and an earthen wall studded with broken glass, located on the outskirts of the small village of Amalia.
Two armed men, including the boy’s father, Siraj Ibn Wahhaj, were arrested on suspicion of child abuse, as well as three women.
Wahhaj is also being detained on a Georgia warrant that seeks his extradition to face a charge of abducting his son. He was expected to appear in court on Wednesday.
Prosecutor Timothy Hasson filed the court documents while asking that Wahhaj be held without bail.
"He poses a great danger to the children found on the property as well as a threat to the community as a whole due to the presence of firearms and his intent to use these firearms in a violent and illegal manner," Mr Hasson wrote.
Prosecutors did not bring up the school shooting accusation in court on Wednesday during an initial appearance by the abuse suspects.
A judge ordered Wahhaj be held without bond pending further proceedings.
