dChan
Anonymous ID: f00dd1 May 18, 2020, 9 p.m. No.9234117   🗄️.is 🔗kun   >>4249 >>4293 >>4347

News/Notes

 

FBI Says Unlocked iPhone Messages Link NAS Pensacola Shooter to Al Qaeda; AG Barr Says Incident was ‘Act of Terrorism’

 

The shooter who killed three sailors and wounded eight others in a December incident at a Florida Navy base had ties to Al Qaeda, and U.S. officials now believe the shooting was an act of terrorism, Department of Justice officials announced on Monday.

 

Attorney General William Barr told reporters the FBI found links between the shooter, Royal Saudi Air Force 2nd Lt. Ahmed Mohammed Alshamrani, and Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). The FBI found messages on two iPhones belonging to Alshamrani that linked him to the terrorist group.

 

According to the FBI, investigators found:

 

Alshamrani and his AQAP associates communicated using end-to-end encrypted apps, with warrant-proof encryption, deliberately to evade law enforcement.

Alshamrani’s preparations for terror began years ago. He had been radicalized by 2015, and after connecting and associating with AQAP operatives, he joined the Royal Saudi Air Force to carry out a “special operation.”

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 and FBI director Christopher Wray chided iPhone maker Apple for not assisting the FBI in unlocking the Alshamrani’s phone immediately after the attack, which added time for the FBI to unlock the phone.

 

“The trove of information found on these phones has proven to be invaluable to this ongoing investigation and critical to the security of the American people. However, if not for our FBI’s ingenuity, some luck, and hours upon hours of time and resources, this information would have remained undiscovered,” Barr said in a statement.

“The bottom line: our national security cannot remain in the hands of big corporations who put dollars over lawful access and public safety. The time has come for a legislative solution.”

 

https://news.usni.org/2020/05/18/fbi-says-unlocked-iphone-messages-link-nas-pensacola-shooter-to-al-qaeda-ag-barr-says-incident-was-act-of-terrorism