Last year, a Saudi military trainee killed three US sailors and wounded several others in a terror attack on the Pensacola military base in Florida. New evidence shows that the trainee, Mohammed Alshamrani, was in communication with a suspected al Qaeda operative. After breaking through Alshamrani’s phone encryption, US investigators uncovered the terrorist group connection. Alshamrani was a member of the Royal Saudi Air Force training at the Naval Air Station at Pensacola and was killed by law enforcement during the attack.
This breakthrough in evidence on the shooter’s phone encryption has eased tensions between the Justice Department and Apple after the two groups clashed over national security and the limits of personal privacy. The government has expressed its concerns over stronger encryption over the last several years, claiming that it endangers the public by prohibiting law enforcement to access court-ordered data. The Justice Department previously declared the attack an act of terrorism motivated by “jihadist ideology” after discovering anti-American, anti-Israel, and jihadi posts on social media made by Alshamrani.
Read More: FBI finds al Qaeda link after breaking encryption on Pensacola attacker’s iPhone
