US Halts All Military Training for Saudi Nationals following Shooting

The Pentagon says it has placed on hold all operational training for Saudi military personnel in the wake of Friday’s fatal shooting by a Saudi airman at a US naval aviation base in Florida. Mohammed Saeed Alshamrani, a 21-year-old second-lieutenant in the Royal Saudi Air Force, killed three American service personnel at Naval Air Station Pensacola before being shot dead by a sheriff’s deputy. Eight others, including first responders, were wounded. The order affects not only an estimated 300 Saudi air crew, but also hundreds of infantry troops, although no classroom training will be canceled. Investigators are seeking to determine whether the shooting was part of a wider plot or merely a so-called lone-wolf event. An unnamed senior defense official did not “have any evidence to suggest that there is a larger ring or larger conspiracy.”