Somali Americans denounce Ohio State attack as IS hails ‘soldier’
Many Muslim Americans were outraged when president-elect Donald Trump denounced Somali immigrants during presidential election campaign
Investigations are ongoing into Monday’s attack, in which Somali student Abdul Razak Ali Artan was shot and killed by police after driving into a crowd and then slashing several people with a knife.
But a Facebook post Artan apparently made ahead of the attack, as reported by US media, delivered a long threat against “infidels” and urged Muslims to listen to the words of US-born al-Qaeda cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, who inspired numerous conversions to the jihadist cause.
On Tuesday, a jihadist-linked news agency called him a “soldier” of Islamic State (IS).
We do know of his Somali heritage and that will be enough for some people to falsely link this tragic incident to the faith of Islam and to the Somali and Muslim communities
Artan’s attack came just two months after a 22-year-old Somali man wounded nine people in a knife attack in a mall in St. Cloud, Minnesota. And just two weeks ago, nine young Somali men were sentenced to lengthy prison terms following their arrest in 2014 in Minneapolis for planning to travel to Syria to join IS.