Savitha Shan, 21, Killed In TX Shooting, FBI Working Iran Link

NEW YORK- The fallout from the distant Iran war has claimed the life of a student who was killed along with another student by a man wearing symbols linked to Iran who opened fire outside a popular venue.

Officials on March 2 identified Savitha Shan as one of the two people killed in the shooting early on March 1 in Austin, which also injured 14 others.

The shooter was identified as Ndiaga Diagne, a 53-year-old immigrant from Senegal, who was wearing a T-shirt with the Iranian flag and another shirt with “Property of Allah” written on it, officials said.

FBI Acting Special Agent Alex Doran said there were signs that the shooter had a “nexus to terrorism”, which authorities were following up on.

Law enforcement agencies across the US have been put on high alert amid fears of terrorism after the US and Israel began bombing Iran on February 28.

FBI Director Kash Patel wrote on X that he had “instructed our Counterterrorism and intelligence teams to be on high alert”.

University of Texas President Jim Davis confirmed Shan’s death in an email to the campus community, saying she was a student “preparing to change the world”.

He described her as “a child of loving parents” and “a loyal friend to many.” “All of us are grieved by this horrible news, and we will remember her,” he said.

The university’s radio station, KUT, reported that according to a friend, Shan was 21 years old and had grown up in Austin.

Shan was pursuing a dual bachelor’s degree in economics and management information systems at the University of Texas at Austin and was to graduate this year.

She was a volunteer with the Austin Tamil Sangam and had started Sunflakestickers, an e-commerce business selling stickers.

She had interned with PricewaterhouseCoopers and Staples.

Describing the shooting, Austin Police Chief Lisa Davis said that early on the morning of March 1, Diagne parked his car outside a beer garden and opened fire at people on its patio with a pistol.

He then got out of the car and began firing a rifle at people walking by before he was killed by police, she said. (IANS)