Published 11:20 IST, December 8th 2019
Pensacola: Before attack, Saudi gunman showed mass shooting videos at dinner party
The Saudi military trainee who carried out the mass shooting at a US naval base showed videos of mass shootings at a dinner party ahead of the deadly attack.
The Saudi military trainee who carried out the mass shooting at the Pensacola naval base, on December 6, in the United States reportedly showed videos of mass shootings at a dinner party ahead of the deadly attack. Authorities came to know about the dinner party after they started looking for any accomplices, but no further information about the party has been reported. Three people lost their lives in the shooting and eight were injured before the gunman was neutralised.
Manifesto before the attack
The shooter, identified as Mohammed al-Shamrani, was part of the US Navy foreign military programs and no allegiance with any terror group has been established yet. According to the SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors jihadist media, analysed his Twitter account and said he had posted short manifesto before the attack. The gunman had called America ‘a nation of evil’ and that he was against evil.
SITE Director Ria Katz said the style of the Pensacola shooting doesn't necessarily resemble one group over another. “However, given that ISIS has very little to lose at this point, it wouldn't be surprising if it claimed the attack, regardless of the attacker's potential allegiances,” she tweeted. She opined that the shooter did not claim allegiance to any group but his tweets shared the views of Osama Bin Laden, founder of al-Qaeda, a terrorist militant organization.
"The security is a shared destiny...You will not be safe until we live it as reality in (Palestine), and American troops get out of our land (sic)," tweeted the shooter from his now-suspended account. The Naval Air Station Pensacola was established in 1985 to train Saudi students but later expanded to students for other nationalities as well. US President Donald Trump has hinted that the program will now be reviewed.
On December 6, Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud made a telephone call to Trump to express his sorrow and grief over the shooting incident. He extended his condolences to the US President, and to the families of the victims adding that the “heinous crime does not represent the Saudi people”.
Updated 11:43 IST, December 8th 2019