Eight injured in US mall stabbing spree
FBI investigating attack
PTI
The St Cloud mall was put on lockdown in the aftermath of the attack, with local media reporting that people were being allowed to leave late Saturday. The facility will remain closed as police continue their investigation. The FBI says it is assisting local police in the investigation into a man who stabbed and wounded eight people at a Minnesota mall.
PTI
Washington
A man making “some references to Allah” stabbed and injured eight people in a shopping mall in the US state of Minnesota, before being shot dead by an off-duty officer, police said.
The suspect “asked at least one person if they were Muslim before he assaulted them,” Blair Anderson, the police chief in the city of St Cloud where the attack took place, told journalists.
But he emphasized that the assailant's motivation remained unclear and said “whether that was a terrorist attack or not, I'm not willing to say that right now because we just don't know.” The attack came as 29 people were injured in a deliberate explosion in a busy New York neighborhood Saturday. Mayor Bill de Blasio said there was no known link to terror at this stage.
Anderson said the armed suspect entered the Crossroads Center mall in St Cloud - a city of about 67,000 people some 110 km northwest of Minneapolis, and attacked at least eight people.
The lone suspect was wearing a private security uniform and had at least one knife, and “made some references to Allah,” the police chief said.
“That suspect was confronted by an off-duty police officer and summarily shot and killed,” he said.
Anderson said the eight people injured were taken to a hospital.
“It's an awful day,” Anderson said. “Starting tomorrow things won't be the same here.”
Like the police, Minnesota FBI spokesman Kyle Loven declined to say Sunday if investigators believe Saturday night's attack at the Crossroads Center mall in St Cloud was a terrorist act.
The Islamic State group has claimed the attacker was one of its own, though it's unclear if the group planned or even knew of the attack ahead of time.
An off-duty police officer shot and killed the attacker.
None of the victims had life-threatening wounds.
An Islamic State-run news agency claims the man who stabbed and wounded eight people at a mall in Minnesota before being shot dead by an off-duty police officer was a "soldier of the Islamic State."
The IS-run Rasd news agency reported the claim on Sunday, saying the attacker had heeded calls from the extremist group for attacks in countries that are part of a US-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. It has also claimed past attacks that are not believed to have been planned by its central leadership.
All eight victims from Saturday's attack were treated at a hospital for wounds that weren't life-threatening and all but one of them were later released.
