Ali has been diagnosed with a mental disorder that makes him delusional. As most people with this kind of disorder, he picks up things that he hears frequently in news/media/his environment and uses them as part of his confabulations. He is not a Muslim, does not frequent mosques, and his mental illness is demonstrable enough that the police sent him to a mental health court. He killed a woman he was infatuated with.

An actual terrorist would have a political reason for his attack. ISIS wants to establish a caliphate in the Middle East and rebuild something resembling the Ottoman Empire. Al Qaeda wants to drive American influence out of the Middle East and destroy Israel. A frustrated, mentally ill lover who kills the object of his infatuation while yelling "allahu akbar" doesn't fit the bill.

I'm not pretending that terrorist organizations aren't a problem, but fabricating terror attacks out of things that aren't doesn't help the cause of fighting terrorism. This has become a highly emotionally and politically charged subject and people have large biases that cloud the facts. This does not lead to a solution, only to pointless arguments.