A day after ISIS claimed that the student who went on a rampage at Ohio State Monday, injuring 22 people, was one of their 'soldiers,' President-elect Donald Trump said the man shouldn't have even been in the United States.
In a tweet posted early Wednesday, the President-elect wrote: "ISIS is taking credit for the terrible stabbing attack at Ohio State University by a Somali refugee who should not have been in our country."
ISIS is taking credit for the terrible stabbing attack at Ohio State University by a Somali refugee who should not have been in our country.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 30, 2016
Abdul Razak Ali Artan was a Somali-born student at the university. He was shot and killed Monday by a quick-acting police officer.
Law enforcement officials have not identified a motive for the Ohio State violence but have suggested terrorism as a possibility. FBI agents continued to search Artan's apartment for clues, but California U.S. Rep. Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said he had seen no evidence Artan was directed by or was in communication with any overseas terror organization.
The mode of attack -- plowing a car into civilians, then slashing victims with a butcher knife -- was in keeping with the recommended tactics of jihadist propaganda. And Facebook posts that were apparently written shortly before the attack and came to light afterward show Artan nursed grievances against the U.S.
He railed against U.S. intervention in Muslim lands and warned, "If you want us Muslims to stop carrying lone wolf attacks, then make peace" with the Islamic State group.
"America! Stop interfering with other countries, especially the Muslim Ummah. We are not weak. We are not weak, remember that," he wrote, using the Arabic term for the world's Muslim community.
He also warned that other Muslims are in sleeper cells, "waiting for a signal. I am warning you Oh America!"
The posts were recounted by a law enforcement official who was briefed on the investigation but wasn't authorized to discuss it publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity.
On Tuesday, a self-described Islamic State news agency called Artan "a soldier of the Islamic State" who "carried out the operation in response to calls to target citizens of international coalition countries." The Islamic State group has described other attackers around the world as its "soldiers" without specifically claiming to have organized the acts of violence.
Artan graduated with honors from Columbus State Community College last May, earning an associate of arts degree. A video of his graduation ceremony shows him jumping and spinning on stage and smiling broadly, drawing laughs, cheers and smiles from graduates and faculty members.
The school said he had no behavioral or disciplinary problems while he was there from the fall of 2014 until this past summer.
He started at Ohio State in August as a business student studying logistics management.
A law enforcement official said Artan came to the U.S. in 2014 as the child of a refugee. Artan had been living in Pakistan from 2007 to 2014. It's not uncommon for refugees to go to a third-party country before being permanently resettled.
