TerrorismCalifornia university campus attacker was inspired by ISIS: FBI

Flag used by ISIS // Source: commons.wikimedia.org

Faisal Mohammad, 18, a college student from Santa Clara who attacked four people at a University of California campus in 2015, had been self-radicalized by terrorist propaganda from ISIS, the FBI said yesterday (Thursday).

On 4 November Mohammad stabbed a fellow student in a UC, Merced classroom, then attacked three others as he fled on campus. Police gave chase and shot and killed him.

NBC News reports that the FBI found “pro-ISIL propaganda” on his laptop. Also officials said he “had visited ISIS and other extremist Web sites in the weeks prior to his attack.”

Mohammad was born in the United States to parents who came to the United States from Pakistan. The FBI said he had begun to prepare for the attack at least one week in advance. The FBI officials said Thursday that it appeared he was working alone.

During the attacks Mohammed was carrying a backpack with a two-page, handwritten plan “detailing his intentions to include taking hostages and killing students and police officers,” the FBI division in Sacramento said in a statement.

The backpack also contained a photocopy of an ISIS flag and a list of items that he thought he would need for an attack, including zip ties, a glass breaker, and a knife.

Merced County Sheriff Vern Warnke said at a news conference that Mohammad planned to go into a classroom, use zip-tie to tie his classmates’ hands, forcing another student to help him. Warnke sai Mohammad also planned to make a “kind of a slip-and-slide” with petroleum jelly which would make it challenging for people entering the room to get around.

The FBI added in its statement, “After an extensive investigation of all available evidence, no ties to co-conspirators or foreign terrorist organizations have been found. Every indication is that Mohammad acted on his own; however, it may never be possible to definitively determine why he chose to attack people on the UC Merced campus.”

Dorothy Leland, chancellor at UC Merced, said the university was relieved to finally have a resolution to this “very tragic event.” She said in a statement released Thursday: “While I shared your desire for a quicker resolution, we are better served by law enforcement’s completion of its investigation in due course … Now, we move to the task of further healing and taking care of the needs of our students, staff and faculty.”

The four students stabbed by Mohammad were not seriously injured.