ISIS claims attack on 2 U.S. cyclists

Two Americans who quit their office jobs last year to bike around the world were killed Sunday during an attack on bicyclists in Tajikistan that the Islamic State claimed to have carried out.

Jay Austin and Lauren Geoghegan, both of Washington, D.C., were among four people killed during the assault, which would have been the Islamic State’s first deadly attack in former Soviet Central Asia.

Authorities in Tajikistan did not accept the claim, instead blaming a banned political party for the attack.

The assault occurred in the countryside south of the capital, Dushanbe, when assailants rammed a car into the cyclists before pouncing on them with knives. Rene Wokke from the Netherlands and Markus Hummel from Switzerland were also killed, Tajik authorities said.