Ohio State Attacker IDed as Teen Refugee From Somalia

The FBI has joined the investigation into Monday's car-and-knife attack at Ohio State University that left nine people injured and the assailant dead, reports NBC News. The suspect is Abdul Razak Ali Artan, an 18-year-old Somali refugee who attended the school, reports the AP. He reportedly left Somalia in 2007 with his family, moved to Pakistan, and came to the US in 2014. Witnesses say that a car plowed into a group of students about 10am, and the assailant then got out with a butcher knife and began stabbing people. A campus police officer fatally shot him within a minute. The AP reports that federal law enforcement officials have been worried about precisely this kind of an attack because of a recent wave of extremist propaganda online encouraging the strategy. One of the victims was critically injured.

"I thought it was an accident initially until I saw the guy come out with a knife," says one student. The attack happened outside Watts Hall, and the Columbus Dispatch reports that students were congregating outside because of a reported gas leak in the building. It was unclear whether the report of the leak was related to the attack. Another witness tells CNN that the assailant had a "crazy look in his eyes." He says the responding officer shot the assailant because the "stabber clearly wasn't stopping." The president of the Somali Community Association of Ohio says reports of the assailant's Somali background is disturbing. "Every Somali person has been calling me, and everybody is crying," he says. (More Ohio State University stories.)