Washington revealed that the Saudi trainee who carried out an American base attack last year was in contact with Al Qaeda, and that his attack was the result of years of planning.
The US Attorney General Bill Barr said today, Monday, that the Saudi Air Force trainee, Mohammed Saeed Al-Shamrani, 21, who carried out the attack at a base in Florida last December, had "important relations" with al-Qaeda "before even arriving in the United States." Considering that what he had done was a "terrorist act".
"We succeeded in deciphering the phone of the bomber and found important information about him with his relationship with al-Qaeda," the justice minister told a news conference, noting that al-Shamrani tried to destroy his phone.
FBI director Christopher Ray said at the same conference that investigators had found that al-Shamrani had been extremist since at least 2015, and that his attack was "the fruit of years of planning and preparation."
Al-Shamrani, a lieutenant in the Saudi army as part of a navy training program, opened fire on December 6 at the Pensacola base, killing three people and wounding eight, before being returned by the police.
In February, an audio recording attributed to Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula claimed responsibility for the attack, but did not provide evidence.
Before the attack, al-Shamrani criticized the American wars, and published statements of the late al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden on social media.