Naval Air Station shooter wrote manifesto condemning US as 'nation of evil:' report
6 Saudi nationals detained for questioning after NAS Pensacola shooting: official
Six Saudi nationals were detained for questioning near a naval air station in Pensacola, Florida, after a Saudi gunman opened fire, killing three people before being shot dead by officers; Jonathan Serrie reports.
The Saudi national who opened fire in a classroom at a naval air station in Florida Friday morning, killing three before being shot dead by officers, condemned the United States as a “nation of evil” in a post online, reports say.
Mohammed Saeed Alshamrani, who was said to be a second lieutenant in a flight training program for foreign military personnel at Naval Air Station Pensacola, posted a short manifesto to Twitter where he claimed to be “against evil,” AFP reported, citing the SITE Intelligence Group.
6 SAUDI NATIONALS DETAINED FOR QUESTIONING AFTER NAS PENSACOLA SHOOTING: OFFICIAL
“America as a whole has turned into a nation of evil,” the post reportedly continued.
According to SITE, a group that monitors jihadist media, Alshamrani allegedly wrote in this manifesto that he “hates” Americans for their supposed crimes against Muslims and “humanity.”
"I'm not against you for just being American, I don't hate you because your freedoms, I hate you because every day you supporting, funding and committing crimes not only against Muslims but also humanity," he wrote, according to the report.
An active shooter situation was reported Friday morning at Naval Air Station Pensacola. (Fox News)
A spokesperson for Twitter told Fox News in an email statement Saturday that the account was suspended but they declined to comment further as to when the manifesto was tweeted out.
Rita Katz✔@Rita_KatzThe style of the #Pensacolashooting 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.
Rita Katz✔@Rita_KatzBREAKING: Tweet by #Pensacola attacker Alshamrani suggests terrorist motive. Does not claim allegiance to any group, but echos Bin Laden: "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."
Rita Katz✔@Rita_KatzBREAKING: Tweet by #Pensacola attacker Alshamrani suggests terrorist motive. Does not claim allegiance to any group, but echos Bin Laden: "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."
Rita Katz✔@Rita_Katz2) The issue of #Jerusalem seems to have been a critical point of Shamrani's anger. His second-most recent of his tweets (just before his will) was an RT of Trump’s December 2017 Jerusalem speech, made sometime in the last 48 hours.
Alshamrani entered a classroom early Friday morning and opened fired, killing three people and injuring several others, including two Escambia County Sheriff’s deputies, who were the first to respond.
Sources told Fox News that the scene of the shooting -- the classroom, where students usually spend three months at the beginning of the program -- indicated that the shooter was a student who was “early” in his training.
The majority of the hundreds of foreign aviation students who have participated in the program are from Saudi Arabia, the Navy said. The Naval training program has about 1,500 pilots in total.
Six Saudi nationals were detained for questioning following Friday’s shooting, although their ties to the shooter were not immediately known.
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The shooting is the second at a U.S. naval base this week. A sailor whose submarine was docked at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, opened fire on three civilian employees Wednesday, killing two before taking his own life.
Fox News’ Vandana Rambaran and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
