Washington excludes terrorism aim behind the attack in Florida

US Defense Secretary Mark Esber has announced that it is too early to consider the attack by a Saudi in Florida a “terrorist” operation, and the New York Times revealed that there is no connection between the attacker and international terrorist groups.

“I cannot say at this stage that it is terrorism,” Esber told the Reagan National Defense Forum in California. He added that he believed investigators should be allowed to do their work.

Esber added that he had asked his ministry officials for additional procedures to scrutinize foreigners enrolled in military training in his country.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in Jacksonville, Florida, declared that the investigation was “active and still going on”.

For his part, President Donald Trump said that King Salman bin Abdulaziz will take part in the care of the families of the victims of the attack.

The New York Times reported that the assessment of officials of the extremism and intelligence services concluded that the Saudi trainee, Mohammed al-Shamrani, who carried out the attack, was “an individual extremist”.

The newspaper quoted an American official that Al-Shamrani entered the United States in 2018 to train in flight and left for Saudi Arabia to return in February, when he did not join the training program until two days before the attack that took place on Friday, and it was not yet clear what he was doing during the time between his return and his joining the training.

The New York Times also reported that al-Shamrani had attended a dinner party the day before the attack, during which videotapes of mass shootings were shown, and that investigators were trying to understand the concert’s backgrounds and what the recordings meant.

Media reported that a Twitter account believed to belong to al-Shamrani had posted a message hours before the attack in which he criticized the United States for supporting Israel “and financing crimes against Muslims.”

The FBI is investigating whether al-Shamrani, a Saudi pilot, actually posted the tweet.

The US Navy made it clear on Friday that a Saudi aviation trainer opened fire inside the Pensacola base, and that he was killed in the attack after he killed three and wounded others.

A US official stated that the Saudi government “owes us because one of its citizens” shot at an air base in Florida during his participation in training operations, killing 3 people before being killed by the police.

The attacker, who is from the Navy, who could be a pilot or a technician in the field of aviation, carried out his attack with the help of a pistol.

King Salman called US President Donald Trump to offer his condolences, according to the latter’s tweet on Twitter.

Trump said that King Salman condemned the “barbaric” attack, and said that the killer did not reflect his people’s feelings toward the Americans.

In Riyadh, the official news agency confirmed the call, and quoted the king as confirming that the kingdom “stands next to the United States” and denounced “heinous crime.”

The King also issued directives “to the Saudi security services to cooperate with the relevant American agencies to access all information that helps uncover the circumstances of this incident.”