ISIS claims responsibility for horrific attack on cycle tourists

ISIS has claimed responsibility for killing four cycle tourists in a horrific attack on a road in Tajikistan.

Two of the dead are American, one was Swiss, and another was from the Netherlands, Tajik officials have said.

The victims were among a group of seven foreign cyclists who were riding about 60 miles south of the Tajik capital, Dushanbe, on Sunday when a vehicle plowed into the group. The disorientated cyclists were then set upon by the occupants of the vehicle and several were stabbed.

ISIS has now published a three-minute video showing five men sitting under a tree pledging allegiance to ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, but saying nothing specific about the attack.

The two American victims, Lauren Munoz and Jay Austin, wrote on their travel blog that they were trying to see the world by bike. "We have neither a firm route nor a timetable, a sponsorship nor a place we need to be," they wrote, "and so we're comfortable just pedaling where the winds and the world and our own hearts take us ...We're prioritizing memories over mileage."