Patterico's Pontifications

11/28/2016

Rampage In Ohio, Motive Still Unknown…

Filed under: General — Dana @ 5:22 pm



[guest post by Dana]

Horrible news:

An Ohio State University student was shot dead by police after he plowed into pedestrians with a car and then stabbed multiple people with a butcher’s knife at the OSU campus in Columbus this morning, officials said. The scene is now secure, officials said.

Eleven people were transported to local hospitals, officials said.

OSU said in a statement that the “injuries include stab wounds, injury by motor vehicle and other injuries that are being evaluated” and that “facts are still being verified.”

The suspect was identified as Abdul Razak Ali Artan, an OSU student, officials said at a press conference this afternoon.

Artan was born in Somalia and living in the United States as a legal permanent resident.

As officials search for a motive, this report will hopefully provide them with a clue. Artan apparently posted on his Facebook page three minutes before the attack:

“I can’t take it anymore. America! Stop interfering with other countries, especially the Muslim Ummah. We are not weak. We are not weak, remember that.”

The post also invokes the name Anwar Al-Awlaki, a radical American-born al-Qaeda cleric, describing him as a “hero.” Al-Awlaki was killed in 2011 but his propaganda has been linked to several domestic terrorist attacks in the years after his death.

“If you want us Muslims to stop carrying lone wolf attacks, then make peace,” the posting reads. “We will not let you sleep unless you give peace to the Muslims.”

And then there is this:

Ohio State’s student newspaper, The Lantern, ran an interview in August with a student named Abdul Razak Artan, who identified himself as a Muslim and a third-year logistics management student who had just transferred from Columbus State in the fall.

He said he was looking for a place to pray openly and worried about how he would be received.

“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.”

From Rep. Adam Schiff (D), the ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee:

“While we are still awaiting more information from the investigation into the OSU attack, it bears the all of the hallmarks of a terror attack,” Schiff said. “The fight against ISIS, Al Qaeda and other terror organizations and their global incitement to radicalism, must be carried out on battlefields far away, and by confronting online propaganda here at home.”

However, we are cautioned not to jump to any conclusions: “What we don’t know: What the attacker’s motives were.” One guesses that would include the sort of on-the-surface assessment that Schiff made.

And for kicks, here’s a round-up of tweets from the We Demand More Gun Control crowd. With self-righteous gusto, they automatically assumed that a firearm was involved in the attack, and then immediately politicized the horrible event. The group really outdid themselves in looking more awful than usual, especially as the “weapon” used in today’s attack was an automobile, and a knife…

–Dana

38 Responses to “Rampage In Ohio, Motive Still Unknown…”

  1. Here we go. Again.

    Dana (d17a61)

  2. When the race of the attacker wasn’t immediately reported by the media, I knew it was likely a 90% chance it was a Muslim.

    That’s just the state of these things today, IMO.

    Dejectedhead (0c7c2f)

  3. I heard CAIR put out a press release saying that we shouldn’t overreact to next week’s terrorist attack.

    GuyfromNH (cb3214)

  4. An illustration of Tim blairs law, with the steyn corollary,

    narciso (d1f714)

  5. Does the left have the facts on their side? Nope.

    Does the left have the law on their side? Nope.

    Guess they’ll be banging that table.

    NJRob (97e4b9)

  6. At the presser, Kasich spoke longer than the entire attack and takedown. A Buckeye is, indeed, a useless nut.

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  7. If you say Gone With the Wind is one of your favorite movies, it’s because you’re motivated by racism.
    But if you cry Allahu Akbar! as you slaughter innocent people attending a university, then we can’t be certain of your motive and any suggestion of what your motive might be is inherently racist.

    Cruz Supporter (102c9a)

  8. Isn’t it about time We-The-People stand up and DEMAND common-sense legislative reforms in order to restrict ownership of those evil, sharp, pointy butcher-knives?

    The very NAME of these objects indicates that THEIR ONLY PURPOSE IS TO “BUTCHER” – IE, TO REND FLESH.

    I am simply appalled that this nation has neglected to address the easy availability of these barbarous implements for so long ….

    ————————–

    Umm, just in case ===>>> ” /sarc”
    … ya never know how a snide comment might be misunderstood by others …

    Oh, and one more thing:

    ” MISTER TRUMP — BUILD UP THAT WALL. ”
    (A backhanded reference to Ronald Reagan’s exhortation to Mr Gorbachev.)

    Doo-Dah, Doo-Dah (f66a03)

  9. The holidays can be a very rough time, emotionally, for some people. Especially a college student far from home and alone in a strange place.

    Ahem … do they show a picture of the knife?

    nk (dbc370)

  10. I am simply appalled that this nation has neglected to address the easy availability of these barbarous implements for so long ….

    Ask and it shall be given unto you: http://loweringthebar.net/2009/06/british-manufacturers-offer-pointless-anti-stab-knives.html

    nk (dbc370)

  11. I’m actually pretty surprised that ABC ran with the true story, that he was a lone wolf Muslim! They probably went looking for a Trump motivation and then could not ignore the truth.

    Patricia (5fc097)

  12. Rip, fritz weaver, also 90, the hanging judge on the twilight zone with burgess metedith

    narciso (d1f714)

  13. We’re going to have a Republican President now, Patricia, who is doing nothing to protect us from terrorism right here in our own country because he has sold out to Halliburton and all he cares about is blood for oil.

    (That was sarcasm.)

    nk (dbc370)

  14. Clem comes out of his burrow, and promptly removes all doubt.

    narciso (d1f714)

  15. Tim Kaine, a senseless consequence of the rhythm method of birth control.

    nk (dbc370)

  16. Artan was born in Somalia and living in the United States as a legal permanent resident.

    The important point is that he spent 7 years in Pakistan before coming to the United States in 2014, which would be at the age of 16.

    Being only aged 16, he was probably not given any vetting. But he was probably already recruited as a terrorist.

    Sammy Finkelman (dcc9ca)

  17. #12 narciso,

    Yes, that episode starring Burgess Meredith and Fritz Weaver was called The Obsolete Man.
    The Twilight Zone had a lot of episodes where the thematic element involved exposing totalitarianism. That particular episode was one of the very best.

    Cruz Supporter (102c9a)

  18. The Somali is more than a bit confused. It’s Russians doing a bit of heavy lifting in New Grozny and moderate Muslims killing headchoppers in Raqqa and Mosul. Americans are just playing by patty cake ROE in support of moderate Muslims in Mosul and trying to figure out how to get out of Afghanistan.

    Rick Ballard (d17095)

  19. Voldya pointedly wouldn’t the like of artan into the country. Hollandaise dies hence Fillon may be the next pm, re the Strasbourg and marseillrs celled.

    narciso (d1f714)

  20. The fact they he spent 7 years in a refugee camp in Pakistan (?!) – I didn’t know they had somali refugees in Pakistan – they probably would not be ordinary people anyway – was reported on the CNS Evening News. It doesn’t seem to be mentioned elsewhere so far, but this is actually the most important point.

    This is very reminiscent of the San Bernardino attack, where someone who had been schooled to be a terrorist was sent to the United States. It’s even got the attacker complaining people being unfairly suspicious of Muslims. The terrorist groups the ISI – Pakistan’s roogue military agency and whoever bribed them – found another loophole in the screening. He was probably not even considered Pakistani and whatever is done in the case of people coming from Pakistan probably wasn’t done.

    It is not that there’d be any reason to suspect any typical 16-year old coming from Pakistan of ties to terrorism. It’s that they didn’t ask what school(s) this person went to, and also wouldn’t know what a certain school meant. This you can only get (easily) from people originally from that country loyal to the United States, or to civilization.

    Sammy Finkelman (032a0d)

  21. He left what is described as an anti-American tirade “on social media” (Facebook actually) shortly before he carried out his attack, so some rough idea of his motive is clear. (rough idea, because whatever he said, it was no doubt full of lies, including even what cause he intended to side with.)

    Update: According to ABC, the post takes the form of a photo of a computer screen displaying a text document and the page it was on appears to have since been disabled, and it was posted three minutes before the attack started.

    It mainly says:

    “I can’t take it anymore. America! Stop interfering with other countries, especially the Muslim Ummah. We are not weak. We are not weak, remember that.”

    A pack of lies. This was no emotional outburst.

    He described Anwar Al-Awlaki as a hero and adds:

    “If you want us Muslims to stop carrying lone wolf attacks, then make peace. We will not let you sleep unless you give peace to the Muslims.”

    Well, the one thing you can know for sure is that this was not a lone-wolf attack. Lone wolves don’t call themselved lone wolves. I mean probably theer wa snobody else in Ohio, but this was not someone acting on his own initiative.

    Sammy Finkelman (032a0d)

  22. Abdul Razak Ali Artan first drove into a crowd that was ouside because of a fire alarm (not a fire drill) Maybe he was just looking for a crowd, and found one.

    It was all over in one minute, although the alert lasted two hours.

    One thought: There was all this effort, because I think it is unlikely this person is truly a lone wolf, nor recruited after he was in the United States, so I think a lot of planning went into this.

    And then they got such limited results! Nine people in the hospital, one critical, but no deaths expected – we don’t know what kind of injuries anybody sustained yet , but still limited harm.

    These terrorist attacks are not working for the most part.

    You know, this guy didn’t listen to instructions. Wasn’t he supposed to go to New York and crash his car into the Thanksgiving Day parade? He must have chickened out. Maybe the nationally publicized security measures convinced him it wouldn’t even begin to work.

    Or maybe – what I actually think is more likely – mentioning that parade was a deception, and the intention ws to attack anywhere it would not be expected.

    Sammy Finkelman (032a0d)

  23. @Sammy Finkelman:Lone wolves don’t call themselved lone wolves.

    Sure they do! And when they want to keep secrets they walk around all day with tape over their mouths.

    Gabriel Hanna (9b1f4a)

  24. It reminds me of the Gulf War, the hand-lettered sign, in English, saying “Baby milk factory”. Yes, factories in parts of the world that don’t speak English and don’t use the Roman alphabet frequently sign their factories with the bare description of what is made there. And the media dutifully repeats it. It said “baby milk” right on it, what do you need?

    Gabriel Hanna (9b1f4a)

  25. Well it fooled peter arnett, not a tough task.

    narciso (d1f714)

  26. Like the signs in Baghdad before the war, “Extremly Nauthy.” We are extremely naughty! It’s all crude propaganda aiming at Western “news” orgs.

    I wonder if there was someone else in on this attack at OSU, as someone pulled the fire alarm, which would put lots of people into the streets.

    The devil wife in San Berdoo also came in through Pakistan. Perhaps we might want to limit immigration from these places?

    Patricia (5fc097)

  27. I wonder how many rooms are on that campus specifically designated as prayer rooms, and of those, how many are specifically Christian? I’m fairly certain that, given the concept of an omnipresent God, people can pray anywhere, so what was preventing him from doing so? Also, if he’s afraid to pray in America, imagine the terror of a Christian praying in public in Iran, Syria, Ann Arbor…

    windbag (eec4b7)

  28. Only the New York Post mentions his stay in Pakistan after 2007. It’s probably not officially confirmed, maybe because of the Privacy Act, but comes from “federal sources.”

    The now down Facebook page isn’t officially confirmed as his. A social media account under a false name is another echo of San Bernardino. The Facebook post is both said to have been written two hours before and also posted 3 minutes before. A lot of the important detauls are very sketchy.

    The car he used was registered to another member of his family.

    This is actually an example of things not working right. The car attack attack started at 9:52 am, it was over within a minute or so, and the first alarm went out at 9:55 am, after it was all over, and also somehow the idea got around it was a shooter, and it wasn’t called off for an hour and a half to two hours.

    This is not an alarm system that works right. It’s one that exaggerates and creates turmoil.

    They checked for the possibility of a second man being in the car, but verified no one else had been in the car, using survellance video. Were they checking for the possibilityof simultanpus second attack somewhere else?

    Ohio State Unversity Police Chief says he believes the fire alarm was a separate incident (but unless you know exactly why it happened, how can you say that?) I also read that there was supposed to a gas leak. Was there or wasn’t there? It could be that the attacker was just looking for a crowd and there’s always some crowd somewhere. If that’s the case, he only posted his statement (consisting of a pictire of a computer screen with words on it) after he spotted the crowd of students because he only posted that right before.

    Stone said this alarm was fortunate – it actually worked against the attacker because it caused police officer to be there to stop it when it started.

    Patricia (5fc097) — 11/28/2016 @ 9:38 pm

    The devil wife in San Berdoo also came in through Pakistan. Perhaps we might want to limit immigration from these places?

    But officially, he wasn’t from Pakistan – he was from Somalia, so that maybe wouldn’t help unlss somebody was actually paying attention and not just following some rules.

    He’d been in Pakistan from the ages of 9 through 16. That whole thing requires some explanation.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Somalis_in_Pakistan

    The Somali community in Pakistan is very small, comprising around 2,500 immigrants as of late 2012.[1] It comprised 4,000[1] to 8,000 migrants only a few months earlier,[2] but steadily shrunk in size as Somali immigrants effected a secondary migration to other countries.[1] The majority of Somalis are students pursuing education in various universities across the country.[1]

    Besides the majority students, 535 refugees and 37 asylum-seekers were at the time also legally registered with the UNHCR in Islamabad. Almost half of them arrived during the height of Somalia’s Islamist insurgency between 2006 and 2009. 10 percent were young children and teenagers, and two percent were born in Pakistan.[3][4]

    And I think some sponser of terrorism saw some opportunity here.

    What they need to know is how to vet – what questions to ask.

    Probably the same people, and the same venues, are going to turn up time and again in the life story of anybody involved with terrorist groups. Best of all, is if they get “turned” but then you’ve got to get the informers out of there.

    Sammy Finkelman (a1f34f)

  29. Greetings:

    The picture I saw of the Muslimanic showed him to be rather healthy in the avoirdupois sense. Didn’t they use to call the people “skinnies” ??? Maybe it was hauling around all that extra kuffar imposed weight that set him off

    11B40 (6abb5c)

  30. Its Columbus, home of White Castle, Wendys and Big Boy. The fresh food is not as pricey as in MPLS or Maine either.

    urbanleftbehind (5eecdb)

  31. I am willing to bet that a hundred newspapers had an editorial today that went something like: “Yes, it was a car and a knife, but it could just have easily been a gun except for gun control laws! See, they work!”

    Kevin M (25bbee)

  32. The jayvees have claimed responsibility

    narciso (d1f714)

  33. At first ISIS only called attention to it, but later whoever runs the web propaganda that says it is what we call ISIS, claimed responsibility.

    Jake Tapper has the start of the text of the words that appeared on Facebook attributed to the attacker:

    https://twitter.com/jaketapper/status/803417243547799552

    He made Burma his cause where Muslims are being attacked by radical Buddhists. There being a problem in Burma naturally he tried to kill random people in Ohio. That he talked about Burma was not in the newspapers. He managed to leave out the word “not”

    He also named some non-radical Muslims I guess not to pay attention to and the AlMaghrib Instituie, which is in Houston. It is actually Salafi.

    There is a website that tries to expose it:

    https://sunni1.wordpress.com/al-maghrib-institute-exposed

    But apparently they say don’t kill people in the United States today. It might be Saudi sponsored.

    Sammy Finkelman (643dcd)

  34. In a country with sensible gun laws, no-one would be able to shoot eleven people with a car and a knife.

    Barry Jacobs (e757ce)

  35. and by confronting online propaganda here at home.

    Yes, we can only beat an ideology with a better ideology.

    So we’ll just use the Obama method of firing everyone in intel and and providing terrorism/counter-terrorism training to national security and law enforcement who know the exact texts to refer to to learn their ideology and fight their online propaganda, and remain ideologically committed to Obama’s firm conviction that we just can’t know where they’re getting their ideology, the source of their propaganda, from. It’s unknowable and unlearnable.

    It’s like their motives. No matter how many times people like Abdul Razak Ali Artan write manifestos on facebook, or like Omar Mateen spend the better part of an hour on 9-11 telling operator exactly why he’s doing what he’s doing, in the case of Micheal Adebolajo who in an eerily similar attack to the one at OSU ran over Drummer Rigby on the streets of London then along with a couple of friens hacked what was left with meat cleavers and knives before having a bystander record on her cell phone his explanation about why he had to do what he did, or in the case of ex-MAJ Nidal Hassan even give hi stunned colleagues a power point pre-briefing on the subject, we just may never know these people’s motives.

    If only there was some common element here that might help us develop a clue.

    Ah well, like Obama I got nothing. I guess we’ll just have to continue to rely on the power of the weepy candlelight vigil to defeat their

    Steve57 (0b1dac)

  36. Steve57 (0b1dac) — 11/29/2016 @ 6:33 pm

    It’s like their motives. No matter how many times people like Abdul Razak Ali Artan write manifestos on facebook, or like Omar Mateen spend the better part of an hour on 9-11 telling operator exactly why he’s doing what he’s doing,

    I don’t think what they write has too mch to do with the truth. And they aopt new causes. I don’t think Burma has ever been mentioned before.

    Sammy Finkelman (a1f34f)

  37. Right, Sammy.

    Surah 9:111 At-Tawbah (The Repentance)

    Indeed, Allah has purchased from the believers their lives and their properties [in exchange] for that they will have Paradise. They fight in the cause of Allah , so they kill and are killed. [It is] a true promise [binding] upon Him in the Torah and the Gospel and the Qur’an. And who is truer to his covenant than Allah ? So rejoice in your transaction which you have contracted. And it is that which is the great attainment.

    Several of these people not only killed, they didn’t even try to get away. They waited for the police to show up.

    …They kill and are killed.

    Whatever else they were, Sammy, they were at least sincere.

    Steve57 (0b1dac)

  38. If this happened at mattress girl’s campus, with her padding and all she prolly wouldn’t have got stabbed I bet.

    elissa (ed23e5)


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