{"id":28745,"date":"2016-09-20T02:26:26","date_gmt":"2016-09-20T02:26:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/minnesota-mall-knifeman-was-student-says-father\/"},"modified":"2016-09-20T02:26:24","modified_gmt":"2016-09-20T02:26:24","slug":"minnesota-mall-knifeman-was-student-says-father","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/minnesota-mall-knifeman-was-student-says-father\/","title":{"rendered":"Minnesota mall knifeman was student, says father"},"content":{"rendered":"

{A knifeman who stabbed nine people at a Minnesota shopping centre at the weekend has been identified by his father as a 22-year-old student.}<\/p>\n

Dahir A Adan is a Kenyan-born ethnic Somali who had been in the US for 15 years, his father told the Minneapolis Star Tribune.<\/p>\n

He said he had “no suspicion” that his son was involved in extremist activity.<\/p>\n

Nine people were injured, but no one died, in Saturday evening’s attack at the Crossroads Center mall.<\/p>\n

The Islamic State group claimed responsibility. Rasd, a news agency linked to the group, claimed on Sunday the Minnesota attacker was a “soldier of the Islamic State”.<\/p>\n

The attacker, who was dressed in a security uniform and carrying what appeared to be a kitchen knife, reportedly made at least one reference to Allah and asked a victim if he or she was Muslim before attacking, said police.<\/p>\n

Adan had been working as a security guard for the mall’s Electrolux Home Products store, according a company spokeswoman.<\/p>\n

He was employed by security firm Securitas, she added.<\/p>\n

The victims included seven men, one woman and a teenage girl at the shopping centre in St Cloud, 70 miles (110km) out of Minneapolis.<\/p>\n

The knifeman was shot and killed by an off-duty police officer.<\/p>\n

Authorities have not identified the attacker.<\/p>\n

But Ahmed Adan said police had told him at around 9pm on Saturday that his son died at the mall.<\/p>\n

Investigators searched the family’s apartment, seizing photos and other materials, said Mr Adan.<\/p>\n

Police had three previous encounters with the attacker, mostly for minor traffic violations, Police Chief Blair Anderson said.<\/p>\n

Adan was a student at St Cloud State University, but had not been enrolled since spring.<\/p>\n

Minnesota has the nation’s largest Somali community, according to US census figures.<\/p>\n

Jaylani Hussein, of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, expressed concern for the state’s community of 40,000 or more Somali-Americans.<\/p>\n

“We are definitely concerned about the potential for backlash in the community, both in the immediate run and the longer term,” he said on Sunday.<\/p>\n

The community has been a target in recent years for terrorism recruiters.<\/p>\n

More than 20 young men have left the state in recent years to join al-Shabab in Somalia.<\/p>\n

About a dozen others have left in recent years to join militants in Syria.<\/p>\n

Nine Minnesota men currently await sentencing on terror charges for plotting to join the Islamic State group.<\/p>\n

\"Dahir<\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

{A knifeman who stabbed nine people at a Minnesota shopping centre at the weekend has been identified by his father as a 22-year-old student.} Dahir A Adan is a Kenyan-born ethnic Somali who had been in the US for 15 years, his father told the Minneapolis Star Tribune. He said he had “no suspicion” that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[100],"byline":[249],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-28745","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-africa","byline-bbc"],"bylines":[{"id":249,"name":"BBC","slug":"bbc","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":104}],"contributors":[{"id":249,"name":"BBC","slug":"bbc","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":104}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28745","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28745"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28745\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28745"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28745"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28745"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=28745"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=28745"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}