FL - Shooter among 4 dead, Naval Air Station, Pensacola, 6 Dec 2019

May 18 2020 rbbm.
FBI: US naval base attack 'motivated by Al-Qaeda'
''A Saudi Air Force officer who went on a deadly gun rampage at a US naval base in December 2019 worked with Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) to plan the attack, US officials say.

The gunman's phone revealed the terror link, the FBI and Department of Justice said.

The attack in Pensacola, Florida killed three US sailors and injured eight.

Prosecutors criticised Apple for refusing to unlock the gunman's phones, which authorities took months to hack.

The attack led to the expulsion of 21 Saudi military pupils who had been studying at the base with the attacker.

According to the FBI, the gunman, who was killed by authorities after shooting 11 people, had been radicalised before arriving Florida for a three-year aviation course the US navy hosts for allied foreign servicemen.

Records revealed that he had been in active contact with AQAP, an off-shoot of al-Qaeda based in Yemen, up to the shooting, including talking about plans to carry out a "special operation" for them.''

He was radicalised in 2015, officials said, and his communications with the terror group "continued right up until the end, the very night before he started shooting".

''The expelled Saudi students were found to have had jihadist material and indecent images of children in their possession, investigators have said, but none were accused of aiding the killer.''

 

Families of Victims of Naval Air Station Pensacola Attack Sue Saudi Arabia

Victims of a 2019 shooting at a Florida military base and their families are suing Saudi Arabia, claiming the kingdom knew the gunmen had been radicalized and that it could have prevented the killings

The lawsuit, filed Monday, also claims that Saudi trainees knew in advance about plans for the shooting but did nothing to stop it.

The suit centers on the December 6, 2019, shooting at Naval Air Station Pensacola in which Mohammed Saeed Alshamrani shot and killed three U.S. sailors. It comes nine months after U.S. officials revealed that Alshamrani, a Saudi Air Force officer, had communicated with al-Qaida operatives about planning and tactics in the weeks leading up to the attack and that he had been radicalized abroad before coming to the U.S. to participate in a military training program.

The lawsuit casts a wide net of blame beyond Alshamrani. It alleges, for instance, that Saudi Arabia knew about Alshamrani's associations with al-Qaida and his radicalization and yet failed to monitor, supervise or report him. It also says the gunman told fellow Saudi trainees at a dinner party the night before the attack that he planned to carry out the shooting the following day, but instead of reporting it, they called out sick that morning. One recorded the shooting; two others watched from a car.

The suit also says Saudi trainees were aware that he had purchased and stored firearms and ammunition in his barracks, and that they had failed to report his posting of and sharing extremist and anti-American material on social media.

“Al-Shamrani was a Trojan Horse sent by his country, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and its proxy, al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, for flight training at Naval Air Station Pensacola, Florida, under the auspices of a program tied to billions of dollars in military arms sales from the United States to the Kingdom,” the lawsuit states. “Little did the American people know that such an arrangement would soon devolve into a horrific, Faustian bargain.”

One month after the shooting, then-Attorney General William Barr announced that 21 Saudi trainees found to have had jihadist or anti-American sentiments on social media pages or “contact with child pornography" were being sent home. Though then-President Donald Trump told reporters that Saudi Arabia would help the victims' families “very greatly,” the kingdom breached the agreement by failing to compensate or engage with them, according to the lawsuit.

The suit comes as the Biden administration has signaled a tougher stance on Saudi Arabia after a mostly cozy relationship for the last four years between Trump and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Earlier this month, President Joe Biden made good on a campaign commitment to end U.S. support for a five-year Saudi-led bombing campaign in Yemen. He made clear, however, that the U.S. would not completely abandon military assistance for the kingdom.

The lawsuit was filed in the Northern District of Florida on behalf of the families of the three who were killed and 13 others who were injured, including sheriff's deputies. A spokesman for the Saudi embassy in Washington did not immediately return an email seeking comment.