Minnesota mall stabbing's potential terrorism raises fears 

ST. CLOUD, Minn. (AP) — The stabbings of nine people at a Minnesota mall look to be the work of a “lone attacker,” officials said Monday, and federal authorities are looking at whether it was a potential act of terrorism in an immigrant-rich state that has struggled to stop the recruiting of its young men by groups including the Islamic State.

“We haven’t uncovered anything that would suggest other than a lone attacker at this point,” St. Cloud Police Chief Blair Anderson said at a news conference with Minnesota Gov. Mark Dayton. “If that changes, we will be transparent about that.”

A young Somali man dressed as a private security guard entered the Crossroads Center mall Saturday wielding what appeared to be a kitchen knife. Anderson has said the man reportedly made at least one reference to Allah and asked a victim if he or she was Muslim before attacking. The man was shot dead by an off-duty police officer. None of the injured suffered life-threatening wounds.

The motive of Saturday’s attack is still unclear, but FBI Special Agent-in-Charge Rick Thornton has said it is being investigated as a “potential act of terrorism.” The Islamic State claimed responsibility, but it wasn’t clear whether the attacker was radicalized. Authorities were digging into his background and possible motives, looking at social media accounts and electronic devices and talking to his associates, Thornton said.

The attack in St. Cloud, a city of about 65,000 people about 65 miles (104 km) from Minneapolis, began shortly after an explosion in a crowded New York City neighborhood injured 29 people. Hours before that, a pipe bomb exploded in Seaside Park, New Jersey, before a 5K race. But President Barack Obama said Monday that authorities see no connection between the New York area explosions and the Minnesota stabbing.

Leaders of Minnesota’s large Somali community have condemned the stabbings, saying the suspect — identified by his father as 22-year-old Dahir A. Adan — does not represent them and expressing fear of backlash.

St. Cloud Mayor David Kleis said an attack like Saturday’s is the type of worry that keeps him “up at night,” but Dayton urged people in St. Cloud and around the state to “rise above” such violence.

Experts say that if Saturday’s stabbings are ultimately deemed a terrorist act, it would be the first carried out by a Somali on U.S. soil. An Islamic State-run news agency claimed Sunday that the attacker was a “soldier of the Islamic State” who had heeded the group’s calls for attacks in countries that are part of a U.S.-led anti-IS coalition, but it wasn’t immediately known whether the extremist group had planned the attack or knew about it beforehand.

It doesn’t appear anyone else was involved in the attack, which began at about 8 p.m. and ended minutes later, Anderson has said. Authorities haven’t identified the attacker, but his father, Ahmed Adan, told the (Minneapolis) Star Tribune his son’s name through an interpreter and local activists also identified Dahir Adan as Somali.