Katharine Lackey and Oren Dorell

USA TODAY

An American kindergarten teacher was fatally stabbed in a public restroom at a shopping mall in Abu Dhabi by a suspect wearing a black robe and full-face veil, police said.

The victim was identified as Ibolya Ryan, 47, by Ben Glickman, CEO and founder of Footprints Recruiting, which helped her get the teaching job in Abu Dhabi.

The attack on Reem Island in the United Arab Emirates on Monday came a little more than a month after the U.S. Embassy in Abu Dhabi warned Americans of an online posting that encouraged attacks against teachers at American and other international schools in the Middle East. There's no evidence the mall attack was related to the threat.

Ryan's LinkedIn biography says she became a teacher in Abu Dhabi in September 2013.

In an online profile with the teacher-recruiting site, Ryan said she was born and raised in Romania but trained as a teacher in the USA. At the time, Ryan said she lived in Abu Dhabi with her twin boys and taught at a large school about 35 minutes away from downtown.

Ryan added she's worked in four different countries in the past 15 years.

"I wanted to experience the Arab world and experience their culture and daily life," Ryan wrote in a section that asked what made her teaching abroad experience unique. "I am working in a very traditional neighborhood and it is very unique to learn and understand their culture."

The U.S. Embassy on Wednesday confirmed an American was killed in the mall attack, adding it is working with "all the appropriate authorities" to seek further information.

Surveillance video released Wednesday by police shows the attacker wearing black gloves and the traditional cloak and face cover worn throughout the Arab Gulf region. In a tweet sharing the video, Abu Dhabi police said the suspect has been dubbed the "Reem Island Ghost."

A fight broke out between the attacker and victim in a women's restroom shortly before the stabbing, said Col. Rashid Mohammad Borshid, who heads the Abu Dhabi police's criminal investigation department. The attacker remains at large after fleeing the scene and police are working to determine the suspect's identity and gender.

"The Abu Dhabi police will spare no effort in order to unveil this heinous crime and bring the culprit to justice," Borshid said in a statement.

The surveillance video shows the suspect entering the mall, then exiting the elevator on a different floor. The suspect then appears to talk briefly with a security officer before heading around a corner, where the bathroom is located.

About 90 minutes later, according to the time stamp on the video, the suspect is seen rushing back to the elevator, where a flurry of activity suggests that bystanders knew something was wrong. A woman then tries to confront the suspect, who gets on the elevator and leaves the building.

The video also shows police footage of the crime scene, including a knife in the bathroom, both covered with blood.

The victim was taken to a hospital, where she died, police said. Her 11-year-old twin boys are being looked after by authorities until their father, her ex-husband, arrives from abroad.

The U.S. Embassy used the killing to remind Americans in the region to practice safe security measures, such as avoiding large crowds, identifying safe areas in their neighborhood and always carrying a cellphone. In its Oct. 29 statement, the embassy said it was unaware of any specific, credible threats to American teachers.

Glickman, whose Vancouver-based company is one of North America's two largest recruiters for overseas teacher jobs, said well over 10,000 Americans are teaching across the Middle East.

He said about 200 of his recruits work in the UAE. Glickman also said more than 3,000 Americans work in the UAE's public schools, plus more who work in the oil-rich country's private schools.

"We don't know what happened," Glickman said about the stabbing. "As far as we're concerned the UAE is a safe place to live and work."

According to Ryan's LinkedIn biography and Colorado educator licensing records, she worked at a Denver elementary school as a special education teacher for three years ending in February 2001.

Her biography shows she then took two years off from work before becoming an executive assistant and conference coordinator at a computer programming company in Denver, a job she left after more than three years in 2007.

She then worked as an event planner at a castle in Hungary until 2010, when she became a substitute teacher in Vienna for more than two years before becoming a learning specialist at a Vienna school.

In June 2013, she left that job, according to her biography, and started teaching in Abu Dhabi a few months later.

Abu Dhabi is the capital of the United Arab Emirates, and the largest of the nation's seven emirates. Large numbers of foreigners live and work there.

Contributing: Trevor Hughes in Denver; the Associated Press