ISIS Claims Responsibility for OSU Attack

The ISIS terrorist organization has claimed responsibility for Monday’s attacks on Ohio State University that left 11 people injured.

The suspect, Abdul Razak Ali Artan, born in Somalia, rammed his vehicle into a crowd of people on the OSU campus before stabbing several pedestrians with a butcher knife.

The SITE Intelligence Group reported that ISIS’ Amaq News Agency reported that the Ohio State attacker was a “soldier of the Islamic State,” another name used for ISIS. SITE posted the Arabic statement carried by Amaq.

SITE chief Rita Katz tweeted that “like other” ISIS-inspired attacks in the West, Amaq claimed the OSU attack was in “response to ISIS ‘calls to target citizens’ in coalition countries.”

1)BREAKING: #ISIS‘ ‘Amaq News Agency reports that #OhioState attacker Abdul Razak Artan was an ISIS “soldier” pic.twitter.com/1XQAQJXcSR

— Rita Katz (@Rita_Katz) November 29, 2016

3) Though Amaq reported #OhioState attacker an #ISIS “soldier,” this style of reporting by #ISIS indicates it wasn’t coordinated w group pic.twitter.com/egHKv99iDf

— Rita Katz (@Rita_Katz) November 29, 2016

4) #ISIS Amaq’s delay with this statement on #OhioStateAttack is clearly due to time spent confirming Artan’s motivations via news reports

— Rita Katz (@Rita_Katz) November 29, 2016

She noted that Amaq’s “style of reporting” indicates that ISIS wasn’t directly behind the attack, and the group didn’t coordinate with Artan to carry out the assault.

Reports indicate that Artan posted a comment on Facebook that slammed the treatment of Muslims in the United States, while also praising al-Qaeda cleric Anwar al-Awlaki.

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“America! Stop interfering with other countries, especially the Muslim Ummah. We are not weak. We are not weak, remember that,” he wrote, according to Fox News.

Law enforcement sources told the network that his post suggests that he was likely self-radicalized before the attack.