2 men expected to plead guilty in Minnesota mosque bombing

ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) - Two of three militia members accused of bombing a Minnesota mosque and attempting to bomb an Illinois women's clinic are expected to enter guilty pleas.

Twenty-nine-year-old Michael McWhorter and 23-year-old Joe Morris are scheduled to appear Thursday in U.S. District Court in Minnesota for a change of plea hearing. This typically means the defendants will plead guilty.

The Clarence, Illinois, men face federal hate crime charges and other counts. A third man, 47-year-old Michael Hari, is also charged.

The men are accused of attacking Dar al-Farooq Islamic Center in August 2017. McWhorter allegedly said the men did it to scare Muslims from the country. The pipe bomb thrown into the mosque caused damage, but no injuries.

In the Illinois attack, a pipe bomb thrown into a Champaign, Illinois, abortion clinic in November 2017 failed to explode.