A member of the Saudi Air Force visiting the United States for military training is the suspect in a shooting that that left four people dead, including the gunman, and injured eight at a US Navy base in Florida, officials say.
The shooter was killed by sheriff's deputies responding to the dawn incident at Naval Air Station Pensacola on Friday, the Navy and local sheriff's office said, the second deadly shooting at a US military installation this week.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said the suspect was a Saudi national attending training at the base as part of a long-standing Navy program open to US allies. The motive for the violence was under investigation.
"There is obviously going to be a lot of questions about this individual being a foreign national, being a part of the Saudi Air Force and then to be here training on our soil," DeSantis said at a news conference.
Florida State Troopers block traffic over the Bayou Grande Bridge leading to the Pensacola Naval Air Station. Source: Getty Images North America
"The government of Saudi Arabia needs to make things better for these victims. They are going to owe a debt here, given that this was one of their individuals."
President Donald Trump said Saudi Arabia's King Salman called him to offer condolences and sympathy to the victims.
"The King said that the Saudi people are greatly angered by the barbaric actions of the shooter, and that this person in no way shape or form represents the feelings of the Saudi people who love the American people," Trump wrote on Twitter.
The suspect used a handgun in the attack, which played out over two floors in classroom building at a base whose main function is training.
"Walking through the crime scene was like being on the set of a movie," Sheriff David Morgan said.
The first reports of an "active shooter" on the base came through to the Escambia County sheriff's office at 6.51am, officials said.
Pensacola Naval Air Station following the shooting. Source: Getty
A few minutes later, a sheriff's deputy fatally shot the shooter in a classroom on the base, Morgan said.
The suspected shooter was Second Lieutenant Mohammed Saeed Alshamrani, according to a US State Department official and a Defense Department official who both spoke on condition of anonymity.
The Pensacola base, near Florida's border with Alabama, is a major training site for the Navy and home to its aerobatic flight demonstration squadron, the Blue Angels. The base employs more than about 16,000 military and 7400 civilian personnel, according to its website.
