ISIS claim responsibility for shopping mall stabbing rampage which left eight people injured before hero cop gunned down attacker
Hero off-duty cop shot dead an attacker who police have said 'made references to Allah'
ISIS has claimed responsibility for a terrifying stabbing rampage through an American shopping mall in which eight people were injured.
A hero off-duty cop shot dead an attacker who police have said "made references to Allah".
A statement released by Isis news agency Amaq said: "The executor of the stabbing attacks in Minnesota yesterday was a soldier of the Islamic State and carried out the operation in response to calls to target the citizens of countries belonging to the crusader coalition."
An off-duty police officer confronted and shot dead the suspected attacker, who wore a security uniform, in the city of St Cloud, Minnesota.
St Cloud Police Chief Blair Anderson said the suspect entered Crossroads Center shopping mall at 8pm and "made some references to Allah".
The suspect was armed with "at least one knife... big enough to hurt someone".
Mr Anderson said he asked at least one of his victims if they were a Muslim before attacking.
Speaking in the aftermath of the attack he added: “What we know it is a lone suspect who attacked eight people."
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The victims were stabbed in various areas of the mall, including corridors, business and common areas.
Mr Anderson said: "We do know that there were approximately eight people transported to the St. Cloud Hospital with non-life threatening injuries.
";That suspect was confronted by an off duty police officer and summarily shot and killed.
He continued "It's an awful day. Starting tomorrow things won't be the same here."
Harley and Tama Exsted were in the mall when the incident occurred.
"All of a sudden I heard pop, pop, pop," Harley told the .
"I thought someone tipped over a shelf. All of a sudden these people started running. I just saw everybody running our way."
Adonis Samuels, 42, was outside the mall where his wife Roxanne is employed as a manager at Clinique at Macy's.
He told AP: "She called me on the phone and told me she was hiding under the counter with a customer."
Roxanne later called and said she was safe in a secure area.
A "deafening" explosion from a “homemade bomb” ripped through the fashionable Manhattan district with police later removing a second suspected device.
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