[NBCNEWS] Minutes before his car-and-knife attack on the Ohio State University campus, Abdul Razak Ali Artan posted a message to his Facebook page -- a rant full of anger at the United States with vague references to ISIS and "lone wolf attacks."But friends of the Somali refugee said Tuesday that the screed and the violence that followed it did not square with the mild-mannered Somali refugee they knew.
"He actually loved America," Ameer Kadar, who last saw Artan two weeks ago, told NBC News. "He loved the fact of the opportunity he had here to go to school... He loved the fact that he was able to get a college degree."
Haroon Khan, who met Artan and his family when they lived in Pakistain, said he could not believe the young man plowed his car into a crowd and stabbed people with a butcher knife before being rubbed out by a police officer.
"He was a very sweet and humble person," Khan said. "He can never do such an act, honestly."
Investigators have not yet pinpointed a motive for Monday's ambush, which sent 11 people to the hospital, but none with life-threatening injuries.
But the Facebook post is a valuable clue to Artan's state of mind as they try to determine if the ambush was rooted in terrorism or if he had a personal problem or grudge that pushed him over the edge.
Two U.S. intelligence officials told NBC News there are no known contacts between Artan and ISIS or any other foreign terrorist organization, disputing an unsubstantiated claim from ISIS' media arm -- which has become routine with attacks -- that he was working in service of the Islamic State
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling
Allaharound with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not
reallyMoslems.....
| This Daily Mail article reports a neighbour claimed Mr. Artan lived in squalor in a two bedroom apartment with his mother and six siblings not far from the OSU campus. |
| Squalor is a relative term for a Somali, and especially for a college student... |
| His mother is in her fifties, apparently, so student standards won't apply. On the other hand, this Daily Mail article suggests our dead miscreant may actually have somewhat more than the 18 years the FBI keeps quoting. Also that he harmed two more than the eleven previously stated -- though not seriously -- and that he ran over to Washington, DC the previous week and bought a knife there, possibly intending to create there the kind of excitement he ended up doing with a new knife bought at a local Wal-Mart at home. |