A police officer in Philadelphia was shot multiple times late Thursday by an attacker who later said he had pledged loyalty to the Islamic State, officials said Friday.

Authorities described the attack as a brazen assassination attempt on a quiet West Philadelphia intersection and marveled that the officer was able to not only survive, but return fire and injure the shooter.

The attacker, who was firing a stolen police gun, was taken into police custody and “confessed to committing this cowardly act in the name of Islam,” Richard Ross Jr., the city’s new police commissioner, said at a news conference Friday.

Ross said that the attacker is a 30-year-old man from Yeadon, an area outside of Philadelphia, who also has an address in the city.

Police say this man told detectives he was pledging allegiance to the Islamic State, the militant group that has declared a caliphate in parts of Iraq and Syria.

The shooting in Philadelphia comes at a time of heightened fears about terrorism nationwide, occurring a little more than a month after a husband-and-wife pair in San Bernardino, Calif., killed 14 people in what was later deemed a terror attack. Shortly after the shooting, the female attacker there went on Facebook and said they both pledged allegiance to the Islamic State’s emir, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

Read the article “Philadelphia Police: Attacker ‘Tried to Execute’ Officer, Pledged Allegiance to the Islamic State” on washingtonpost.com.