Currents News Staff
Investigators are unraveling the motives of 21-year-old Mohammed Alshamrani, a member of the Royal Saudi Air Force who shot and killed three U.S. sailors at a naval air station in Pensacola, Florida in December before authorities killed him.
“This was an act of terrorism,” said U.S. Attorney General William Barr. “The evidence shows that the shooter was motivated by Jihadist ideology.”
“The shooter posted a message on September eleventh of this year stating, ‘the countdown has begun.’ He also posted other anti-American, anti-Israeli and Jihadi messages on social media,” he said.
Now Attorney General Barr says they need Apple to help them unlock the shooter’s iPhones.
“It is very important for us to know with whom and about what the shooter was communicating before he died,” he said.
“Investigators discovered that 21 Saudi international military students engaged in activity that raised serious concerns, including social media containing some Jihadi or Anti-American content and some kind of contact with child pornography,” the Defense Department said in a statement.
The 21 Saudi servicemen have now been expelled from the U.S..