A young Somali man, aged between 18 and 20, who lived in Pakistan for more than seven years, drove a car through a crowd of students, staff and faculty members at Ohio State University in Columbus and attacked them with a butcher's knife before being shot dead by the police.

Abdul Razak Ali Artan, a third-year transfer student in logistics management, left his native Somalia in 2007 and lived in Pakistan till 2014 before he was settled in the US by Catholic Charities two years ago.

A university building was evacuated because of reports of a gas leak, and Artan drove a car into the crowd of people standing outside, charged out of his car wielding a knife and attacked, injuring 11 persons.

Al Qaeda and the Islamic State have called upon their supporters to carry out attacks by driving vehicles into people or using knives, tactics that do not require elaborate preparation or equipment or networks.

With inputs from IANS.