Three Republican senators called on acting Department of Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf to explain how the gunman from the shooting in Pensacola, Florida, was granted a visa.
Ahmed Mohammed al Shamrani, a 21-year-old Saudi national, opened fire and killed three at Navy air station in Pensacola, Florida. Saudi authorities reported that they believe Shamrani was radicalized in 2018 during an extended stay in the Middle East. He then returned to the United States to be trained at the Naval base before he turned his weapon on his peers in December.
In a letter to Wolf, Florida Sens. Marco Rubio and Rick Scott joined Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin in demanding more information on the department’s visa vetting system, given that Shamrani was allowed to return to the U.S. after being radicalized.
The senators wrote, “On December 6, 2019, Ahmed Mohammed al-Shamrani, a Saudi Arabian national here in the United States on an A-2 visa for military training, killed three people and injured eight at the Naval Air Station in Pensacola, Florida. On Jan. 13, 2020, Attorney General William Barr described this attack as “an act of terrorism” and referred to evidence that ‘the shooter was motivated by jihadist ideology.’”
They added, “According to other reports, the Saudi government allegedly believes that al-Shamrani may have embraced a radical Islamist ideology as early as 2015, two years before he entered the United States. Just before his attack, al-Shamrani visited the 9/11 Memorial in New York City.”
The senators demanded a timeline detailing Shamrani’s visa vetting process. They also requested to know if the department interviewed Shamrani before granting the visa and whether the Saudi government alerted the department about Shamrani’s potential radicalization before the visa was issued.
In addition to that information, they also requested to know whether the department has included a social media inquiry as part of the vetting process and what information they found on Shamrani’s accounts if a social media scan was completed.
The senators demanded the information by Feb. 7 and asked for a Senate briefing about the shooting on Feb. 21.
