- Authorities believe that Abdul Artan was inspired to carry out a lone wolf attack by ISIS
- Today, an official from the terror group said that Artan is their 'soldier'
- But law enforcement sources say there was no evidence he had been in direct contact with ISIS and say he was radicalized online by propaganda
- They say that all evidence points towards a lone wolf style attack
- The Somali refugee injured 11 during a rampage at OSU on Monday
- An OSU police officer shot Artan dead just a minute into the attack
- Just before the rampage, Artan posted a message on Facebook, saying he could no longer stand the mistreatment of Muslims
- Artan was born in Somalia and spent seven years in a refugee camp in Pakistan before immigrating to the U.S. with his family in 2014
The Islamic State has called Abdul Artan a 'soldier' for their cause. The Somali refugee was shot dead after going on a slashing rampage at Ohio State University on Monday
Ohio State knifeman Abdual Artan was inspired by ISIS, authorities say.
Law enforcement sources believe the student's radical Facebook posts, made shortly before he went on the slashing rampage on Monday, reveal his motivations.
The Somali refugee ranted about how he was 'sick and tired of seeing my fellow Muslim brothers being killed and tortured' on social media before wounding 11 in the knife and car attack.
Despite claims from the terror group that Artan was an 'ISIS soldier', sources told CNN there is no evidence that he ever communicated with them directly.
Instead, they say all evidence points to a lone wolf attack. They believe he was radicalized online through terrorist propaganda from ISIS and deceased Yemeni-American cleric Anwar al-Awlaki.
Investigators are inspecting his computer and cell phone and talking to family and associates, as they try to determine what led him to act.
Artan, who transferred to the school from community college in August, mowed down a group of people evacuating Watts Hall after a fire drill Monday morning.
He proceeded to get out of his car and attack innocents bystanders with a butcher knife - sending eleven faculty, students and staff members to the hospital. Three of the 11 injured remained hospitalized today.
'The executor of the attack in the American state of Ohio is a soldier of the Islamic State,' an ISIS official is quoted as saying. Above, ISIS fighters in Raqqa, Syria
Just minutes before the attack, Artan posted a long diatribe on Facebook about how he couldn't take the mistreatment of Muslims and accusing America of 'interfering' with other nations.
Since then, ISIS has come forward to claim responsibility for the knife-wielding attack, with an insider telling a jihadist-linked news agency on Tuesday that Artan was a 'soldier' of their cause.
'The executor of the attack in the American state of Ohio is a soldier of the Islamic State and he carried out the operation in response to calls to target citizens of international coalition countries,' the Amaq agency quoted an insider source as saying, according to a translation by the SITE monitoring group.
Artan's style of attack also fits with ISIS' instructions to sympathizers online to strike out alone with any weapons available to them.
But the group has reinvigorated that message in recent weeks in its new propaganda magazine and a video.
Minutes before his rampage, Artan posted a long diatribe on Facebook about how he couldn't stand the mistreatment of Muslims any longer. His body is pictured above on Monday
Just before 10am, the fire alarm was pulled at Watts Hall and Artan mowed down the evacuating students, faculty and staff with a relative's car (top left)
Dozens of FBI agents began searching Artan's apartment Monday night for clues to what set off the rampage.
Artan was born in Somalia and was a legal permanent U.S. resident, according to a U.S. official who was not authorized to discuss the case and spoke on condition of anonymity.
A law enforcement official said Artan came to the United States in 2014 as the child of a refugee. He had been living in Pakistan from 2007 to 2014. It is not uncommon for refugees to go to a third-party country before being permanently resettled.
In addition to the post right before the rampage, Artan published other negative opinions about America on this social media profile.
The student railed against U.S. interference in Muslim lands and warned, 'If you want us Muslims to stop carrying lone wolf attacks, then make peace' with the Islamic State group, a law enforcement official said Tuesday.
OSU police officer Alan Harujko, 28, (pictured) shot Artan dead just a minute into the student's attack
'America! Stop interfering with other countries, especially the Muslim Ummah. We are not weak. We are not weak, remember that,' he wrote in another post, using the Arabic term for the world's Muslim community.
The posts were recounted by a law enforcement official who was briefed on the investigation but wasn't authorized to discuss it publicly and spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.
'Every single Muslim who disapproves of my actions is a sleeper cell, waiting for a signal. I am warning you Oh America!' Artan also said.
On his first day of school at OSU in August, he also expressed a fear of praying in public at the school in an interview with the student newspaper.
'I was kind of scared with everything going on in the media. I'm a Muslim, it's not what media portrays me to be,' he told the newspaper. 'If people look at me, a Muslim praying, I don't know what they're going to think, what's going to happen. But I don't blame them. It's the media that put that picture in their heads.'
