The Daesh extremist group (ISIL) has claimed responsibility for the stabbing attack in the US state of Ohio that led to the injury of nearly a dozen people.
Amaq news agency, which is affiliated to Daesh, said in a statement on Tuesday that the attacker in Ohio State University responded to calls from the group to target citizens of the so-called coalition against Daesh.
The attack took place a day earlier when a Somali man, identified as Abdul Razak Ali Artan, rammed his car into pedestrians on the Columbus campus before getting out of the vehicle and going on a stabbing rampage.
According to police, around 80 people were on the sidewalk when Artan violently drove the car over the kerb.
The assailant was gunned down by police after injuring 11 people with a butcher's knife.
In the Tuesday statement, Daesh described 20-year-old assailant as a “soldier” of the extremist group.
"Brother Abdul Razak Ali Artan, God accept him, implementer of the Ohio attack, a student in his third year in university," the group noted.
The third-year student at OSU (pictured below) was a Somali refugee, staying in the US as a legal permanent resident.
In an interview in August last year, Artan had criticized the media for providing a false image of Muslims.
The incident prompted officials to put lockdown on the university, which has more than 64,000 students enrolled.
The attack came amid debate among Ohio lawmakers at the state senate to reduce the penalty of carrying a gun on a campus from a felony to a misdemeanor.
