This doesn’t necessarily constitute a claim that Artan was in touch with them. They repeated a call for the murder of American civilians just days ago. Artan may have known that and heeded it. He is certainly making the sign of allegiance to the Islamic State in this photo: the upraised index finger. The signal of the index finger held up is, of course, used in myriad contexts, but it has become associated with a declaration of the oneness of Allah and allegiance to the Islamic State. This signal has been known to be a sign of allegiance to the Islamic State for almost as long as there has been an Islamic State. It has been described as the group’s “ubiquitous hand signal.” It strains credulity to think that a Muslim in November 2016 who referenced al-Awlaki and said he wanted to kill infidels didn’t know its significance as a sign of support for the Islamic State.
“ISIS claims responsibility for Ohio State car-and-knife attack,” RT, November 29, 2016 (thanks to Graham):
Islamic State has claimed responsibility for a car-and-knife attack at Ohio State University in Columbus that injured 11 people and left the suspect dead. The claim was made through the group’s news agency.
The attack in the state of Ohio “is a soldier of the Islamic State and carried out the operation in response to appeals targeting nationals of coalition countries,” a security source told AMAQ, the news agency of Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL).
مصدر أمني لوكالة أعماق: منفذ هجوم ولاية #أوهايو الأمريكية هو جندي للدولة الإسلامية ونفذ العملية استجابة لنداءات استهداف رعايا دول التحالف
— خادم الإخوة (@kjuvd9) November 29, 2016The FBI and other law enforcement agencies investigating Monday morning’s incident have not announced any links between the deceased suspect, identified as OSU student Abdul Razak Ali Artan, and the terrorist group in the Middle East….