Abdul Razak Ali Artan Was Known Terror Recruitment Target

Department of Homeland Security officials knew Ohio State University attacker Abdul Razak Ali Artan was a possible recruitment target of Islamic terrorists but granted him asylum anyway, along with his mother and six of his siblings, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley revealed in a letter sent Wednesday to the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services.

While seeking asylum as refugees from Mogadishu, Somalia in 2013, Artan’s mother told immigration authorities that she feared persecution from al-Qaeda affiliate group al-Shabaab, and worried that Abdul and his siblings would be recruited by the terrorist organization if they remained in Somalia.

That knowledge should have lead USCIS officials to “conduct additional questioning better understand ties to a group that the United States designated as a foreign terrorist organization in 2008.” But the additional questioning, which the Committee describes as “common practice” in those situations, never happened.

Artan’s father, according to the letter, had been kidnapped by the terrorist group. According to the Committee, one of Abdul’s siblings did not travel to America with the rest of the family, for reasons left unclear.

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