Minnesota: Authorities claim motive of Muslim who stabbed people while screaming “Allahu akbar” is unclear

Adan shouted “Allahu akbar” and first asked some victims if they were Muslim before stabbing them.

And they can’t figure out his motive? Is there no end to the willful ignorance and insanity of those who have a sworn responsibility to protect the people? His motive couldn’t be more obvious, but it is the one thing that is forever untouchable: Islam.

“One year later, motive of St. Cloud mall attacker remains unclear,” by Stephen Montemayor, Star Tribune, September 17, 2017:

Two months before he plunged kitchen knives into 10 shoppers at St. Cloud’s Crossroads Center mall, after reportedly asking some if they were Muslim, Dahir Adan shared a radically different message on Twitter.

“Don’t ever say that ISIS represents Islam,” read part of a post @D_Adan retweeted on July 4, 2016.

That same terrorist group would deem the 20-year-old Adan a “soldier of the Islamic State” hours after he was gunned down by an off-duty police officer inside the mall on Sept. 17, 2016. The FBI, for its part, quickly labeled the case a “potential act of terrorism.”

But one year after Adan’s rampage, newly unsealed court filings detailing the FBI’s early response underline the difficulty that persists in trying to unwrap the young man’s motivation and determine whether he had any guidance from virtual terror planners abroad.

Days after sending more than 20 agents to St. Cloud to interview scores of witnesses, the FBI obtained search warrants for Adan’s social media accounts, the Toyota Camry he was driving when he struck a bicyclist on his way to the mall and four digital devices, according to court filings. But authorities still say they may never know what sparked Adan’s decision to bring two Farberware kitchen knives to the mall that night.

FBI special agent in charge Richard Thornton told reporters last year that the bright young college student may have been radicalized “almost overnight,” growing withdrawn and scolding relatives for not being more devout….

Authorities have not found contacts between Adan and operatives of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, instead pointing to witness statements that Adan shouted “Allahu akbar,” an Arabic phrase meaning “God is great,” and that he first asked some victims if they were Muslim before stabbing them….

An official ISIS magazine, Rumiyah, further lionized Adan as “our brother Dahir Adan” in its October 2016 publication, listing only the St. Cloud attack among its U.S. “operations” in an annual roundup of the group’s affiliated attacks worldwide. The publication described the stabbing victims as “kuffar,” or disbelievers, and published an image of paramedics tending to a victim outside the mall.

The same issue published an article recommending using knives in attacks because of their wide availability. But, perhaps in response to Adan’s attack, the group “explicitly advised” against kitchen knives “as their basic structure is not designed to handle the kind of vigorous application used for assassinations and slaughter.”

The group also wrote that it was “essential to leave some kind of evidence or insignia identifying the motive and allegiance” to ISIS — either a note pinned to a body or a recorded “final testament if the operation will be of a nature where the expected outcome is one’s shahadah,” or death….

A family friend who declined to be identified for this story said that one year later, he still “didn’t have a clue” as to what happened to Adan….

The opacity of Adan’s case has been difficult for St. Cloud, said Natalie Ringsmuth, who directs #UniteCloud, a nonprofit that has worked to ease cultural tensions. Ringsmuth said the stabbing is still referenced by anti-Muslim activists visiting the city, as recently as last week. Meanwhile, she said not knowing whether Adan was indeed radicalized has curbed the opportunity to discuss preventing a similar episode….