Saudi attacker who killed three on US base had long-standing ties to al-Qaeda, officials say
- Mohammed Alshamrani, a Royal Saudi Air Force flight student at the Naval Air Station Pensacola in Florida, killed three Americans on December 6, 2019
The Saudi military student who killed three Americans at a US naval base in December had long-standing ties to al-Qaeda and planned an attack before he arrived in the United States, US justice officials said Monday.
The December 6 attack by Mohammed Alshamrani, a Royal Saudi Air Force flight student at the Naval Air Station Pensacola in Florida, “was actually the culmination of years of planning and preparation,” said FBI Director Christopher Wray.
Evidence discovered on an encrypted mobile phone shows he was radicalised at least as far back as 2015, and has since been associating with “dangerous” operatives from the Yemen-based al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), Wray added.
The FBI and Justice Department revealed their findings after a months-long effort to crack the encryption on Alsahamrani’s iPhones, which they said Apple refused to help with.
US Attorney General Bill Barr accused Apple of putting its own financial interests ahead of the nation’s.
“If not for our FBI’s ingenuity, some luck, and hours upon hours of time and resources, this information would have remained undiscovered,” Barr said.