The Pentagon on Tuesday announced that it was temporarily suspending operational training for Saudi Arabian military students in the US following a shooting rampage last week by a Royal Saudi Air Force officer.
Saudi Arabian military students in the US would continue classroom instruction, but operational training is halted pending a security review, senior US Department of Defense officials said.
Mohammed Alshamrani, a 21-year-old lieutenant in the air force, opened fire in a classroom at Naval Air Station Pensacola in Florida on Friday last week, killing three US sailors and wounding eight other people before being shot dead by police.
US Deputy Secretary of Defense David Norquist ordered a review to be completed within 10 days of policies for screening foreign students.
The suspension of operational training applies to all members of the Saudi Arabian military undergoing training in the US.
“The ones that are pilots will be grounded,” an official said.
Pentagon officials said that the security study was being done with the cooperation of the Saudi Arabian government.
The policy review would apply to all international military students, but the suspension of operational training only applies to Saudi Arabian students, they said.
Pentagon officials did not provide a figure for the number of Saudi Arabians undergoing military training in the US, but they said that the overall number of international military students is between 5,000 and 5,100.
Alshamrani, who was armed with a lawfully purchased Glock 9mm handgun, reportedly posted a manifesto on Twitter before the shooting denouncing the US as “a nation of evil.”
The FBI on Tuesday said that Alshamrani obtained the gun through an authorized gun seller in Florida in July through a loophole in federal gun laws that allows foreign nationals — usually unable to purchase firearms — to have a hunting license.
US National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien has said that the FBI investigation was ongoing, but “to me, it appears to be a terrorist attack.”
The shooting struck a nerve in the US with its echoes of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, in which Saudi Arabian citizens accounted for 15 of the 19 hijackers that flew airliners into the World Trade Center in New York City and the Pentagon.
Saudi Arabia remains one of the closest US allies in the Middle East and US President Donald Trump has cultivated a relationship with its controversial de facto ruler, Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman.
King Salman denounced the shooting as a “heinous crime” and said that the gunman “does not represent the Saudi people.”
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