My latest in PJ Media:
What causes jihad terror attacks? As far as the U.S. Navy is concerned, a primary cause is apparently people who say mean things. On Friday, the Navy released a 260-page investigation on the December 2019 jihad attack perpetrated by Royal Saudi Air Force 2nd Lt. Mohammed Alshamrani, in which three people were killed. The report found that yes, he was a jihadi, but also “there was a toxic microclimate” at Naval Air Station Pensacola due to the “unprofessional behavior” of one of Alshamrani’s instructors. So you see, Alshamrani murdered people in the name of Allah and Islam because non-Muslims were mean to him. Isn’t that always the case?
Military.com reported Friday that “a U.S. Navy investigation has determined that the Saudi pilot who killed three people when he opened fire on Florida’s Naval Air Station Pensacola last year was self-radicalized.” The Navy will not say so in so many words, but that means that Alshamrani somehow got the idea that his Islamic religion commanded him to make war against unbelievers, including his comrades-in-arms in Pensacola.
We didn’t really need a 260-page report to tell us that. The Associated Press reported back in May that Alshamrani “repeatedly communicated with al-Qaida operatives about planning in the months leading up to the attack.” And he didn’t just communicate with them. Attorney General William Barr noted that the shooter, Mohammed Alshamrani, had “significant ties to Al Qaeda [in] the Arabian Peninsula not only before the attack, but before he even arrived in the United States.”
FBI Director Christopher Wray added that Alshamrani’s attack was the “brutal culmination of years of planning and preparation….We now know enough to see Alshamrani for what he was — a determined AQAP [al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula] terrorist who spent years preparing to attack us. He wasn’t just coordinating with them about planning and tactics. He was helping the organization making the most it could out of his murders.” Wray said that al-Qaeda “certainly more than just inspired” Alshamrani’s massacre.
Read the rest here.