Minnesota knife attacker identified as 20-year-old former security guard

Kenyan-born Dahir Adan stabbed 10 people at a shopping centre in St Cloud on Saturday before he was shot dead, but none of his victims suffered serious injuries

Dahir Adan, 20, was born in Kenya to Somali parents and brought up in the US ((Facebook))

The man who stabbed 10 people at a shopping centre in Minnesota on Saturday has been identified as 20-year-old Dahir Adan, a former part-time security guard who is thought to have acted alone. Adan was shot dead at the scene by an off-duty police officer. None of his victims suffered life-threatening wounds.

The Associated Press reported that Adan’s family had identified him and confirmed that he had once worked as a security guard at a warehouse close to the Crossroads Centre in St Cloud, where he launched the knife attack. Witnesses said he Adan had referred to Allah during the rampage, which is being investigated as potentially an act of terrorism.

However, in spite of claims by Isis that Adan was a supporter of the terror group, the authorities said they had found no evidence to that effect. “We haven’t uncovered anything that would suggest other than a lone attacker at this point,” St. Cloud Police Chief Blair Anderson told reporters.

The Adan family is originally from Somalia, but Adan’s father told the Minneapolis Star-Tribune that his son was born in Kenya and had been in the US since the age of five. He was a student at St Cloud University with a criminal record containing nothing but a minor traffic violation, for which he reportedly owed a fine of $342.