Pensacola Shooter Had Prior Al-Qaeda Contact
Mohammed Alshamrani was a naval flight officer student when he engaged in the shootings (FBI)
Mohammed Alshamrani was involved in a shooting at Pensacola Naval Air Station. Three American Sailors were killed during the shooting. The FBI gathered the shooter’s phones and wanted to gain access to them. Apple refused to cooperate. The FBI still managed to gain access to those phones. They discovered that the Pensacola shooter had contact with Al-Qaeda prior to the shootings.
From Fox News:
“He had been radicalized by 2015, and having connected and associated with AQAP operatives, joined the Royal Saudi Air Force in order to carry out a ‘special operation,'” the State Department said. “In the months before the Dec. 6, 2019 attack, while in the United States, Alshamrani had specific conversations with overseas AQAP associates about plans and tactics. In fact, he was communicating with AQAP right up until the attack, and conferred with his associates until the night before he undertook the murders.”
Barr said the U.S. also has used information from the phone to launch a recent counter-terrorism operation against one of Alshamrani’s overseas associates based in Yemen.
“We will not hesitate to act against those who harm Americans,” Barr added.
Apple declined to comment when asked by Fox News about the developments Monday.
Barr in January called the attack an “act of terrorism,” noting that Alshamrani – was “motivated by jihadist ideology.”
Senior Justice Department officials told Fox News the 21-year-old shooter left a “trail of extremism” in the days and weeks leading up to the attack.
“During the course of the investigation, we learned that the shooter posted a message on September 11, [2019] stating, ‘the countdown has begun,'” Barr said in January. “During the Thanksgiving weekend, he then visited the 9/11 Memorial in New York City.
“He also posted other anti-American, anti-Israeli, and jihadi messages on social media, including two hours before his attack,” Barr added.
This guy managed to get into the Suadi military. This leaves the possibility that what happened in Afghanistan is happening elsewhere in the Middle East. People in contact with Al-Qaeda, lone wolves, or actual members of Al-Qaeda, managed to join middle east militaries… With no intention to do anything radical until after they complete their military contracts. Then, the “newly minted veterans” would return to their groups with valuable knowledge on how the host nation military does things.
Fox News has more details here.
“He also posted other anti-American, anti-Israeli, and jihadi messages on social media”
So he was working for the Mainstream Media?
A good look at what the enemies of our Republic will go thru in order to strike at us. And how long they will wait to make their move. Makes one wonder just how many other sleepers are in and amongst the sheep?
I am a very firm believer in the protections against search and seizure, as I am for our other rights. That being said, Apple could have unlocked the phones without giving up proprietary info or compromising the security of other devices. We will see more and more of these types of “Lone Wolf” attacks. How many millions of Mooselems are in this country? And how many religions are there out there whose Commandments specifically say to “kill the non-believers.”
In answer to your last two questions , the answer to both is, too many.
You would be surprised at how many Apple IPhones are in the FBI inventory. Perhaps they should procure their future phones from another source.
This is a surprise?
But, but John Brennan says jihad only means personal “struggle” to improve oneself and has nothing to do with holy war. Who knew the Koran is just a self improvement book.
His communist proclivities were also only a youthful indiscretion.
That’s some mighty fine social media screening right there, Zeke.
WTFO? “Except for all the anti-American, anti-Israeli, and jihadi messages, Mr. Alshamrani is a fine candidate for a Foreign National Pilot Program in Pensacola.”
“countdown has begun” – Does that mean that next year, which is 20 years after the NYC attack, we can expect another episode? And if so, are we going to be asleep at the switch or stop it before it starts?
Just askin’, because despite the two-fer “presidents” in Afghanistan, if these bozos succeeded once, they will keep trying.
Our support of the Kingdom is the gift that keeps on giving.
I have a great idea, Make America Mind It’s Own GD Business Again!
Apple must be going ‘oh phuc me’. These maroons would probably have cooperated if it was Trump’s phone the FBI needed access to. Don’t want to play ball? OK, watch this – brute force entry. Seriously, they think FBI,DOD,NSA, etc..can’t break into a password protected phone? Dumba$$es.
So the “PornStash” nickname that was blamed at first (Honor killings) was an untruth?
And it was a video that slandered the “prophet” that caused Benghazi. . .
I hope they round up all of his phone-found accomplices in the country and, shoot them all.
That’s an Amish barn-raiser if I ever saw one…
The FBI didn’t want apple to open the phone,they wanted a key to EVERY phone. Just more media and FBI distraction,instead of doing their jobs. Truth be known the FBI was probably well acquainted with this terrorist before he acted. Seems to be a pattern with them.
The FBI wanted “how to crack an Apple phone”. The method would be applicable to any Apple phone, thus -all- Apple phones.
If a personal key method existed, they could have gone to judge to get a warrant for it. If you have the physical key to someone’s safe, and a judge issues a warrant for it, you can’t say “nope”. (Well, not without consequences. )
The FBI wanted to know how to crack -all- phones. Given how leaky they have become, and how blatantly disobedient to the Fourth Amendment, Apple is entirely correct to say “no”.
It is a safe bet that the FBI broke the assbag’s personal key, probably via brute forcing multiple phone-clones in a massively parallel process.
Oops. We werent supposed to know they could do that. And since they can break in -that- way, they don’t really need the “master key” method.
Enough time has passed that they could have brute-forced the actual phone, deterrents notwithstanding, assuming assbag made the usual amateur error of an easily remembered PIN thus an easily guessed one.
I don’t care how vile an example they use. They don’t need free passes to effortless everybody-snooping at will. They have demonstrated a lack of trustworthiness.
More likely, the FBI used this device:
https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/graykey-iphone-encryption-passwords/
then used brute-force to crack the password. That then allowed them to read the encrypted contents.
FWIW: if an encryption algorithm is a good one – e.g., doesn’t have known exploitable weaknesses or built-in backdoors – brute force is about the only game in town to access encrypted data without having the key.
Back in 1980s the School of the Americas at Fort Benning was protested constantly due to the number of central and south American officers who later overthrew their governments and tried to become President for Life dictators. The charge appears to be that the school taught them to do these things.
The US isn’t teaching them to be ass hats–they show up crackpots. The problem is that we are running schools for anyone other than US personnel.
Why is a wealthy nation like SA in need of US flight schools? Because they are incompetent to run them most likely. Well, TS–not our problem.
A strong military to defend the US is necessary in a dangerous world. An interventionist foreign policy…not so much.
But when you believe that literally everything is a governmental role–from trade between two businesses to how many people are allowed to attend university–you are left with the mess we have now.