Despite Islamic State ties, Minnesota FBI refuse to label 2016 Mall stabbing terrorism
In a new article published today, the head of the FBI in Minneapolis says authorities may never be certain about what led to the stabbing attack that left 10 people wounded at a Minnesota mall five months ago.
FBI Special Agent in Charge Rick Thornton said getting into Dahir Ahmed Adan’s electronic media has been an ongoing effort, and authorities might never know exactly what he was thinking.
The 2016 Minnesota Mall stabbing was on September 17 of last year and just weeks later the FBI stated that Adan had taken “interest recently in Islam, withdrew from his friends and encouraged his sisters to be more religious.”
photo/Islamic State flag
Islamic State’s Amaq news agency praised that attack the day after the incident: “The executor of the stabbing attacks in Minnesota yesterday was a soldier of the Islamic State and carried out the operation in response to calls to target the citizens of countries belonging to the crusader coalition,” Amaq said in a statement.
He said in cases like that, investigators can put together a “substantially complete” picture of what happened, but that isn’t the same as absolute certainty.
The Star Tribune chronicled more details of Thornton discussing Somalia radicals, using the terms “hate crime” and not terrorism.
