A 20-year-old Somali immigrant killed during Monday's bloody car-and-knife attack at Ohio State University should not have been in the United States to begin with, and ISIS is "taking credit" for the attack, President-elect Donald Trump tweeted early Wednesday.
The attacker, Abdul Razak Ali Artan, was shot dead by an OSU campus police officer within minutes of driving onto a curb and hitting students and faculty with his car and then jumping out and stabbing others with a butcher knife.
Trump's tweet about Artan not being in the United States fits closely with campaign proposals that included plans at first to bar Muslims from coming into the United States. He later changed that to calls for a ban for entry from foreign nations affected by terrorism.
Shortly after Trump's election, a statement on the president-elect's stance on Muslims was removed from his webpage. That original statement said Trump "is calling for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country's representatives can figure out what is going on.
"According to Pew Research, among others, there is great hatred towards Americans by large segments of the Muslim population."
Artan was classified as a legal permanent U.S. resident. According to NBC News, he was born in Somalia and lived there with his family until 2007, when they emigrated to Islamabad, Pakistan.
In 2014, he traveled with his mother and siblings to the United States, coming in through Texas and staying at a refugee shelter in Dallas for almost a month before eventually settling in Columbus, Ohio, which has a large Somali population. His father remains in Dubai, where he works.
Artan appeared to have settled well in the United States, earning an associate's degree in May from Columbus State Community College before enrolling at OSU in the fall.
But on Monday, Artan posted a message to Facebook, referring to ISIS and "lone wolf attacks," even though two U.S. intelligence officials told NBC News there were no known contacts between him or other terrorist organizations.
ISIS' Amaq News Agency, though, reported Artan was a "soldier of the Islamic State," reports The Washington Post.
Rita Katz, executive director of the SITE Intelligence Group, told The Post that Amaq's claim did not actually mean Artan coordinated the attack with ISIS, which often claims responsibility for attacks even when it has not had direct involvement.
However, she said it is likely he spent some time looking at reports about ISIS as a form of motivation.
In his Facebook post, Artan suggested "lone wolf attacks" could be stopped by making peace with "dawla in al sham," using an outdated name for ISIS. He also vowed to "kill a billion infidels" to save Muslims and called radical cleric Anwar al-Awlaki a "hero."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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