According to TELEGRAPH a man named Alton Nolen allegedly beheaded a co-worker after being fired from his job where he had recently tried to convert people to Islam.
A woman has been beheaded in an Oklahoma food processing plant by a sacked employee who had allegedly tried to convert his colleagues to Islam.
Alton Nolen, 30, walked into the Vaughan Foods plant plant in Moore Oklahoma and decapitated Colleen Hufford, 54, with a knife and then attacked a second women, Traci Johnson, 43.
He was shot and injured by Mark Vaughan, chief operating officer at the company and an Oklahoma County reserve deputy. Ms Johnson and Nolen are reported to be recovering from their wounds in hospital.
Initially it was thought the attacks were a purely personal grievance triggered by Nolen's dismissal.
But the FBI were called in because of the nature of the crime and following reports that Nolen, who has several criminal convictions, was a convert to Islam and had sought to persuade other workers to follow his lead.
Police told local media that Nolen, who had just been sacked, drove to the business park where the company was located, hitting another vehicle before entering the building and attacking employees at random.
"Nolen went to the parking lot, then drove his vehicle to the front of the business ... Nolen then entered the main entrance into the front office," said police spokesman Jeremy Lewis in the city of Moore.
"Nolen encountered and killed Colleen Hufford with a knife. During the attack, Nolen severed the victim's head," he said in a statement.
"After conducting interviews with Nolen's co-workers, information was obtained that he recently started trying to convert several employees to the Muslim religion," said the police spokesman.
According to records released by the Oklahoma state corrections department, Nolen was convicted of several drug offences and assaulting a police officer in January 2011 and was released from prison in March last year.
The records showed more than 20 convictions dating back to December 2009.
The incident comes after a series of beheadings of western captives by jihadists in Syria and Algeria, posing in online videos, but US officials have not confirmed any link to the Oklahoma case.
But the incident could trigger renewed fears that jihadist "lone wolves" could be willing to act on western soil.
At the same time members of the Islamic community in Oklahoma fear there could be a backlash.
Saad Saad Mohammad, a spokesman for the Islamic Society of Greater Oklahoma City, said the mosque was enhancing security to pretect the muslim community from any retaliation.
He told the NewsOK.com website: "“They have this ISIS thing on their minds and now this guy has brought it to America.”
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