FBI probes stabbings as possible terror act

Associated Press

ST. CLOUD, MINN.

A man in a private-security uniform stabbed nine people at a Minnesota shopping mall, reportedly asking one victim if he or she was Muslim before an off-duty police officer shot and killed him in an attack the Islamic State group claimed as its own.

None of the nine people who were stabbed in Saturday night’s attack received life-threatening wounds, St. Cloud police Chief Blair Anderson said. He said it doesn’t appear that anyone else was involved in the attack at the Crossroads Center in St. Cloud, which began about 8 p.m. and was over within minutes.

At a news conference Sunday, FBI Special Agent-in-Charge Rick Thornton said the attack was being investigated as a possible act of terrorism and that agents were still digging into the attacker’s background and possible motives. Authorities were looking at social media accounts and the attacker’s electronic devices, and talking to his associates, Thornton said.

An Islamic State-run news agency, Rasd, claimed Sunday that the attacker was a “soldier of the Islamic State” who had heeded the group’s calls for attacks in countries that are part of a U.S.-led anti-IS coalition.

It was not immediately clear if the extremist group had planned the attack or even knew about it beforehand. IS has encouraged so-called “lone wolf” attacks.

Authorities didn’t identify the attacker, but the Star Tribune of Minneapolis said the man’s father identified him as Dahir A. Adan, 22. Speaking through an interpreter, Ahmed Adan, whose family is Somali, said his son was born in Africa and had lived in the U.S. for 15 years.