California campus attacker Faisal Mohammad inspired by Isis but 'self-radicalised'

The injuries inflicted on the four victims – two students, the construction worker and a college adviser – were not life-threatening

Faisal Mohammad was shot and killed by a campus police officer, but his laptop computer contained propaganda from the radical Islamist group

A teenager who stabbed four people at a California university last year appears to have been inspired by Isis, but was probably “self-radicalised” and acted alone, the FBI has said. Faisal Mohammad was shot and killed by a campus police officer, but his laptop computer contained propaganda from the radical Islamist group and evidence that he had visited extremist websites in the weeks leading up to his attack.

Mohammad, 18, who was in his first year at the University of California, Merced (about 80 miles inland from San Jose), began his stabbing spree just before 8am on 4 November. He first entered a classroom, where he allegedly stabbed a fellow student before being disturbed by a construction worker who was also stabbed.

Mohammad then fled across the campus, attacking two other people before he was shot. The injuries he inflicted on his four victims – two students, the construction worker and a college adviser – were not life-threatening.

A plan for a more complex attack, which he had failed to execute, was found on a two-page note in his backpack, which also contained a photocopy of the Isis flag, petroleum jelly, zip-tie plastic handcuffs, night vision goggles, duct tape and a hammer.

“His laptop contained pro-[Isis] propaganda, and he had visited [Isis] and other extremist websites in the weeks prior to his attack,” the FBI said in a statement.

The attack took place less than a month before the shootings in San Bernardino, 300 miles south of Merced, which claimed the lives of 14 people. The husband-and-wife killers responsible for that attack are also believed to have been self-radicalised and inspired by Islamic terrorist groups.

Mohammad is believed to have begun preparing his the attack at least a week earlier, but investigators said there was no evidence to indicate he had any help or guidance from anyone else. “He was self-radicalised and not directly connected to any subversive group,” Merced County Sheriff Vern Warnke told reporters.

At the time of the stabbings, police originally suggested that Mohammad had acted out of frustration after being expelled from a study group at the university. “There is still nothing to indicate … that this is anything other than a teenage boy who got upset with fellow classmates and took it to the extreme,” Sheriff Warnke said in November.

In a statement issued through their lawyer, the Mohammad family said the teenager’s actions were entirely out of character. “Faisal was always quiet, respectful and studious,” they said.