AAPL Apple Inc

By Sadie Gurman and Dustin Volz 

The Saudi aviation student who killed three people at a Florida Navy base last year was in touch with a suspected al Qaeda operative, a person familiar with the investigation said, a discovery authorities made based on information found in the gunman's locked iPhones.

Second Lt. Mohammed Alshamrani, a member of the Saudi air force who was training with the U.S. military, posted anti-U.S. messages on social media about two hours before he opened fire in a classroom at Naval Air Station Pensacola on Dec. 6, officials have said.

Attorney General William Barr called the attack an act of terrorism, and used it to pressure Apple Inc. help unlock a pair of the gunman's iPhones that he said could provide more information about his radicalization.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation was ultimately able to access information on the phones, the person said, and found that the gunman had communicated with the suspected al Qaeda operative. Mr. Barr and FBI Director Christopher Wray plan to provide more information at a news conference Monday. The FBI declined to comment on the al Qaeda link.

During the attack, Alshamrani made statements critical of U.S. military actions overseas and fired shots at a picture of President Trump, officials said. In the weeks beforehand, the gunman used social media to blame the U.S. for crimes against Muslims, officials said, issuing a warning on the anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks that "the countdown has started."

Mr. Barr's January request of Apple jump-started a long-simmering fight between law enforcement and Silicon Valley over encryption technology. Mr. Barr said Apple didn't provide any "substantive assistance" to break into two phones belonging to the gunman, which were locked with unknown pass codes and encrypted.

Apple countered at the time that it had provided timely and thorough answers to the Justice Department's requests for help in the investigation and provided a "wide variety of information" to law enforcement, including iCloud backup data and account and transactional information.

Write to Sadie Gurman at sadie.gurman@wsj.com and Dustin Volz at dustin.volz@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

May 18, 2020 10:07 ET (14:07 GMT)

Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL)
Gráfico Histórico do Ativo
De Mar 2024 até Abr 2024

Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL)
Gráfico Histórico do Ativo
De Abr 2023 até Abr 2024