Islamic State group inspired California student in stabbings, says FBI

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“Every indication is that Mohammad acted on his own,” Gina Swankie, a spokeswoman for the FBI’s Sacramento field office, said in a statement. “It may never be possible to definitively determine why he chose to attack people on the UC Merced Campus.”

The knife attack happened a month before a gun-wielding husband-and-wife team in San Bernardino killed 14 people and wounded 21 others at a workplace holiday party.

In that case, too, investigators said they were influenced by the Islamic State group, but not directly connected to it. Like Mohammad, they had not raised red flags that put them on a watch list.

In both the cases family members said they were unaware of their loved ones’ interests in terrorist groups.

In Merced, Mohammad burst into a classroom, stabbing two students. He stabbed a construction worker who intervened, then ran from the building, where he knifed a school employee sitting on a bench. Police shot and killed Mohammad.

The FBI says the college freshman from Santa Clara, California, for several weeks had visited the websites of Islamic State and other extremist groups. He planned the attack at least a week before carrying it out, investigators said.

During the rampage, Mohammad carried a backpack containing a two-page, hand-written manifesto detailing plans to bind students to their desks with zip-tie handcuffs, authorities have said. Then, he was going to make a fake 911 distress call, ambush responding officers with a hunting knife and steal their guns to shoot a list of targeted classmates.

Mohammad’s backpack also held a photocopy of an Islamic State group flag and a list of items he would need for the attack, the FBI said.

Attorney Daniel Mayfield, who represents Mohammad’s relatives, said the family remains in the dark about what prompted the violent outburst just days after he turned 18. They are asking investigators to provide them with more information, he said.