Ohio State attacker may have self-radicalised, officials say
WASHINGTON/COLUMBUS, Ohio: A Somali immigrant who injured 11 people at Ohio State University in a vehicle and stabbing attack before he was shot dead may have followed the same path to self-radicalisation as militants in a number of ‘lone wolf’ attacks, US officials said on Tuesday.
Abdul Razak Ali Artan, 20, was shot dead by a police officer on Monday moments after he plowed his car into a crowd of pedestrians and then leapt out and began stabbing people with a butcher knife.
Investigators were probing the background of Artan, a Muslim who was a lawful permanent resident of the United States and a student at Ohio State.
Authorities have given no direct motive for the attack on the Columbus campus. US Representative Adam Schiff, the ranking Democrat on the House of Representatives Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, said Artan appeared to have been influenced by material on the internet.
“It appears that the attacker was radicalised online by jihadist propaganda,” he said in a statement.
Schiff said no evidence has been uncovered showing that Artan communicated with or was directed by overseas militant groups. It was unclear what prompted Artan’s family to immigrate to the United States or if his time outside the United States played a part in his decision to launch the attack, Schiff said.
The Islamic State militant group claimed responsibility on Tuesday for the attack. But a federal official who asked not to be identified said investigators have seen no evidence so far that the militant group’s role was anything more than inspirational.
Artan’s actions fit the pattern of lone-wolf militants who carried out other attacks, such as the gunman who shot to death 49 people at a nightclub in Orlando, Florida, in June, and the man who killed four US Marines and a Navy sailor in a shooting in Chattanooga, Tennessee, last year, the officials said.
Those gunmen were also killed by police. Investigators were looking into a message posted on Facebook by Artan with inflammatory statements about being “sick and tired” of seeing Muslims killed, a law enforcement source said. — Reuters