‘Ohio univ attacker lived in Pakistan’
WASHINGTON: The Somali student who carried out a car-and-knife attack at Ohio State University that injured 11 people before being shot dead had lived in Pakistan for seven years, reports said.
Abdul Razak Ali Artan, 18, was a Somali refugee who left his homeland with his family in 2007, lived in Pakistan and then came to the US in 2014 as a legal permanent resident, NBC News quoted law enforcement officials as saying.
Investigators are probing whether the attack was an act of terrorism by Artan, who had criticised the media for its portrayal of Muslims.
He temporarily lived in Dallas before settling in Ohio.
Artan rammed his car into a crowd at Ohio State University and attacked them with a butcher knife, injuring 11 before police fatally shot him.
A motive was not immediately known, but police said they were investigating whether it was a terrorist attack.
Ohio State University police Chief Craig Stone said Artan deliberately drove his small gray Honda over a curb outside an engineering classroom building and then began knifing people.
Officer Alan Horujko, 28, who was nearby because of a gas leak arrived on the scene and shot the driver in less than a minute, Stone said.
Angshuman Kapil, a graduate student, was outside Watts Hall when the car barrelled onto the sidewalk.
“It just hit everybody who was in front,” he said. “After that everybody was shouting, ‘Run! Run! Run!’”
Eleven victims were taken to three Columbus hospitals.
Most had been hurt by the car, and two had been stabbed officials said. One had a frac tured skull.
Several prayer vigils were held Monday night to support the victims and the community
Classes at OSU were can celled after the attack, but were scheduled to resume Tuesday.
Students said they were nerv ous about returning and planned to take precautions such as not walking alone.
“It’s kind of nerve-wracking going back to class right after it,” said Kaitlin Conner, 18, o Cleveland, who said she had a midterm exam to take Tuesday
Representative Adam Schiff of California, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Com mittee, said the act bore the hall marks of an attack carried out by someone who may have been self-radicalised.
Ohio State’s student newspa per, The Lantern, had featured an interview in August with Artan, who identified himself as a Muslim and a third-year logis tics management student who had just transferred from Columbus State in the fall.
He said he was looking for a place to pray openly and wor ried about how he would be received.