i have paul cruickshank with us now, a cnn terror analyst and brynn gingras is in columbus, but, paul, i wanted to talk to you first and foremost. the last time i laid eyes on you is when we were standing in nice and talking about isis' call to use cars as weapons but it doesn't appear this young man was at all in contact with any terror groups. so what's your interpretation of this? >> that's right, brooke, no evidence at all that he was in contact with any terror group including isis. isis just put out this statement via the media agency claiming he was a soldier of the caliphate but not claiming he was part of them in the sense that he trained with them or spent time with them just that he acted on their behalf. you can see in his facebook posting which was put out just before the attack traces of influence on the al qaeda side with anwar al awlaki. calling that american yemeni cleric who was part of al qaeda in yemen our hero imam. so clearly anwar al awlaki had an inspirational role in this attack. but in this same statement talking about how the united states should make peace w

joining us, paul cruickshank, "agent storm: my life inside al qaeda" and kimberly dozier, cnn global affairs analyst, contributing writer at "the daily beast." >>> and complaining about muslim brothers and sisters persecuted and an a reference to awlaki, the cleric killed in a u.s. drone strike. do you believe this is an act of terror? >> short answer, yes. very strong indications that this was indeed islamist terrorism. calling for relentless campaigns against the united states, as a hero, saying that he believed in retribution against the infidels, believed a billion could be killed. this was clearly, according to his own words an act of islamist terrorism, and also calling on the united states to make peace. it appears with isis. to stop these kind of lone wolf attacks. he attacked civilians, he was imbuing these attacks with a clear terrorist objective. >> as a minimum, do you believe, kimberly, he was inspired on social media, for example, by the likes of anwar awlaki to go out and commit murder -- didn't kill anybody but certainly tried to, ramming his car up on the pedestrian

. >> joining me now is paul cruickshank cnn terrorism analyst. what do you make of the fact that this isis news agency, this propaganda outlet, is claiming that terrorist was inspired by isis? >> he might have been inspired by some degree by isis. but it's probably an opportunistic claim they're putting out, they're not substantiating it or saying they had any connection to him, communications and so on. this is somebody who appears to have been both inspired by isis to some degree and also perhaps even a little bit more by al qaeda because he mentions anwar al awlaki, who is an american-yemeni cleric who was killed five years ago in a u.s. drone strike. this was a cleric who called for relentless attack against the united states, referring to him as our hero imam. somebody who was clearly inspired to some degree by anwar al awlaki. someone who had a lot of animosity towards the united states, railing on his facebook page about u.s. actions in the muslim world, even saying that he would be willing to have up to a billion infidels killed in retrib