ISIS claims responsibility for Ohio State car ramming, knife attack

ISIS has claimed responsibility for a car ramming and knife attack at Ohio State University campus in Columbus, Ohio, according to a social media post observed by The Foreign Desk. Posting on Telegram in Arabic, the terror group calls Ohio attacker Abdul Razak Ali Artan a “soldier of the Islamic State”and claims that he “carried out the operation in response to the casualties brought about by the coalition countries.” The Foreign Desk translated the post. The attacker, a Somali refugee who lived near campus, drove over the sidewalk with his car Monday, deliberately ramming his vehicle into a crowd of people before getting out and launching a stabbing attack with a butcher knife. Eleven people were injured. Artan was subsequently shot dead by a nearby police officer. Initial reports erroneously called the incident a shooting, but according to law enforcement, there is no indication that the suspect used a gun. On his Facebook page, Artan allegedly posted a rant before Monday’s attack. Throughout his page, he made reference to reaching a “boiling point” and “lone wolf attacks” and quoted notorious extremist cleric Anwar Al Awlaki. "America! Stop interfering with other countries, especially Muslim Ummah. We are not weak. We are not weak, remember that," he wrote. Artan, a legal refugee who left Somalia in 2007 , lived Pakistan for seven years before coming to the United States. He was a third-year student at Ohio State University. In a video released this past weekend by ISIS in Raqqa, Syria and reported by The Foreign Desk, a masked attacker encourages knife attacks on the West, at one point stating, “There is no need to use firearms like a rifle or a pistol, rather it is enough to use blade weapon.”