This past week, Abdul Razak Ali Artan, a student at Ohio State University, went on a violent spree on campus with the intent of killing as many people as possible. While thankfully he did not have a gun, he did drive through a crowd of people-hitting numerous students. He then took the attack a step further by jumping out of the car with a butcher’s knife at which point he began to chase after people, swinging wildly at whomever he could.
He did injure a handful of people, but thankfully nobody was killed. Eventually, the police arrived and, with the terrorist running towards him, a brave police office took him down, killing him.
According to Artan’s social media posts, he had become despondent over his religion’s rigorous pray schedule. As a devout Muslim he was required to pray five times a day—oftentimes in public. Artan posted that praying in public made him feel uncomfortable.
Just before Artan went on a rampage on campus, he had posted about Muslims being “tortured and killed” in Myanmar. He had also reposted words from Yemeni al Qaeda leader Anwar al-Awlaki.
Artan was originally from Somalia, but his family left there in 2007. He came to the U.S. legally in 2014. In Somalia al Shabaab is the local terrorist affiliate of ISIS. In recent years al Shabaab has had considerable success in recruiting Americans to their terror organization. Watch Laura Ingraham discuss al Shabaab’s recruitment success in America in the clip below.
