Base Facebook post, comments do NOT support the new policy:

https://www.facebook.com/Offut...9098993793?__tn__=-R

Article:

https://www.military.com/daily...ersonal-weapons.html

Offutt AFB Announces New Restrictions on Personal Weapons

30 Dec 2019
Military.com | By Oriana Pawlyk

Beginning Jan. 2, airmen at Offutt Air Force Base, Nebraska, will no longer be able to carry their personal firearms on base, even if they lock them up in their cars first.

Col. Gavin Marks, commander of Offutt's 55th Wing, issued the change, which the base announced in a Facebook post Monday.

"The current policy, which authorizes registered Department of Defense ID card holders with a Nebraska Concealed Handgun License (CHL) and holders of reciprocating state concealed carry license (CCL) to transport and secure privately-owned handguns in privately-owned vehicles within the base, will no longer be valid," the Facebook post reads. "This policy change comes as a result of the commander's initial review of the Offutt AFB Integrated Defense and Antiterrorism Plan, a requirement to be completed within 120 days of assuming command."

Air Force officials did not immediately have a response for Military.com on whether the decision was prompted by a specific incident or event.

There are a few exceptions to the new policy. For example, the change has no effect on those law enforcement personnel who have a LEOSA permit, said 55th Wing spokesman Ryan Hansen.

LEOSA, the Law Enforcement Officers Safety Act, is a 2004 federal law that provides credentials for sanctioned law enforcement members to carry a concealed weapon to any state as long as they abide by state and local laws.

Related: Can You Carry a Gun on a Military Base?

The law was extended to military personnel in 2013 to give those who may have another job -- such as police officers who also serve as Guardsmen or reservists, or retired or separated service members who work as base contractors -- the ability to carry their personal weapons to their next location without violating other DoD or federal laws. The individuals must meet the law's stringent requirements, which outline who can carry weapons, and must be cleared by their respective military branch and contracting authority providing the license.

Hansen said the updated policy is still within requirements outlined in DoD Instruction 5210.56, "Arming and the Use of Force" and Air Force Instruction 31-101, "Security Forces Standards and Procedures."

"The commander's intent for this change is that firearms will be effectively controlled and safely handled on Offutt AFB and is reflective of the full confidence in the 55th Security Forces Squadron's ability to defend the installation and its personnel," the Facebook post states.

In 2016, the Air Force gave base commanders the ability to implement three programs at their discretion that all allowed additional service members to carry weapons.

Officials that year gave commanders the ability to utilize LEOSA, as well as the Unit Marshal and Security Forces Staff Arming programs.

The Unit Marshal Program (UMP) is meant to act as a Security Forces augmentee system, granting "permission to work with security forces to train airmen and allow them to open carry an M9 pistol in their duty location," the service said in a release at the time.

These airmen are supplemental, acting as additional security to SF in the event of an emergency. Members selected for UMP require additional training, the release said.

Meanwhile, Security Forces Staff Arming gives more security forces members the ability to carry a government-issued weapon while on duty, with commander approval. The members must have the appropriate Air Force Specialty Code and work in staff billets at the squadron, group, wing or major command levels, according to service officials.

The Air Force established these programs following the July 2015 shooting in Chattanooga, Tennessee, which killed four Marines and a Navy sailor. The shooter, Muhammad Youssef Abdulazeez, opened fire on two military installations -- a recruiting center, then a Navy Reserve Center.

The new policy comes in the wake of two deadly shootings aboard Navy bases this month.

On Dec. 4, a sailor killed two civilian contractors and himself in a shooting at the Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard in Hawaii. He had been standing armed watch in the shipyard before he opened fire.

On Dec. 6, Saudi Royal Air Force 2nd Lt. Mohammed Saeed Alshamrani killed three and wounded eight during a shooting at Naval Air Station Pensacola, Florida.

Following the incident, FBI officials said the attack is being investigated as an act of terrorism. Alshamrani was at the base for training.

The Defense Department subsequently began a review of its screening procedures for foreign military student programs for those training alongside American troops in the U.S.



-- Oriana Pawlyk can be reached at oriana.pawlyk@military.com. Follow her on Twitter at @Oriana0214.

https://www.stripes.com/news/m...rms-on-base-1.613294

Marine law enforcement can carry privately owned firearms on base

By IMMANUEL JOHNSON | STARS AND STRIPES
Published: January 2, 2020

Marine Corps law enforcement officers may now carry privately owned concealed weapons on Marine bases, a change made in the aftermath of tragic shootings on two military bases last month.

Civilians and Marines credentialed under the Law Enforcement Officer Safety Act may carry their own firearms for personal protection but cannot use them while on duty, a service memo issued Tuesday said.

On Dec. 4, a sailor fatally shot two men and injured another before killing himself at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, Hawaii. Two days later, a Saudi air force officer in training shot and killed three sailors before he was killed by police officers at Naval Air Station Pensacola, Fla.

“These tragic events prompted Headquarters Marine Corps to accelerate existing efforts to develop concealed carry policies” aligned with a May memo on the use of force signed by Navy Under Secretary Thomas Modly, the Marine Corps memo said.

Off-duty law enforcement officers remain prohibited from carrying weapons in Defense Department schools under federal law and in base courthouses unless authorized by a military judge, the memo said.

A 2016 Pentagon directive titled “Arming and the Use of Force” allows military arming authorities to grant personnel permission to carry concealed firearms.

The memo signed by Modly in May states that Department of the Navy personnel may request permission from authorities to carry a privately owned firearm, subject to further guidance from the Marine and Navy service chiefs.

An Army regulation updated in January 2019 bars carrying privately owned weapons on Army bases unless authorized by the installation senior commander. It also requires the commander to set policy for firearm registration and transport for people living on base.

The Air Force also grants installation commanders some discretion to set firearm policy. For example, Maxwell Air Force Base, Ala., authorized current and former law enforcement officers credentialed under LEOSA to carry concealed firearms in 2018.


johnson.immanuel@stripes.com

From the Navy Times today.

--------------------------

FBI: Some Saudi military students being removed from US post-Pensacola shooting

Nearly two dozen Saudi Arabian military cadets who were training on American bases are being removed from the programs and being sent home in the wake of a December attack at Naval Air Station Pensacola that left three U.S. sailors dead and eight others wounded.

U.S. Attorney General William Barr announced the Saudi students’ removal Monday during a press conference at the Department of Justice in Washington. Barr said there was no indication the gunman, Saudi Air Force 2nd Lt. Mohammed Alshamrani, who was killed by a sheriff’s deputy, acted in concert with other Saudi cadets or foreign nationals in the program.

“This was an act of terrorism,” he said.

Of the 21 being removed, investigators found 17 had posted anti-American or “jihadi” content on social media and 15 had had contact with child pornography, mostly via a chat room in which one or two images had been posted.

Barr said none of the content rose to the level of federal prosecution and added that the Saudi government found the material unbecoming for its officers and would assist in the event of additional investigatory needs. Of those being removed, 12 came from Pensacola while the other nine were located at Columbus Air Force Base in Mississippi, Laughlin and Joint Base San Antonio-Randolph Air Force bases in Texas and Vance Air Force Base in Oklahoma.

There are about 150 Saudi cadets in the training pipeline at Pensacola.

After being notified of the concerning content, “the Department of Defense worked with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to withdraw the students from training and in consultation with the Department of Justice, the DOD worked with the Saudi Embassy in the United States to return these students to Saudi Arabia,” Pentagon press secretary Alyssa Farah said in a statement released Monday evening.

In the year and a half before the shooting, Alshamrani left a social media trail that indicated he’d been influenced by “jihadist ideology" and believed violence was necessary to defend Muslim countries. He also posted a message containing anti-American and anti-Israeli comments two hours before the attack as well as another that raised concern.

“We learned that the shooter posted a message on Sept. 11 of this year stating that the countdown has begun,” Barr said.

A senior Justice Department official said an investigation in the Southern District of New York that was opened after officials learned Alshamrani visited the 9/11 Memorial there with friends during the Thanksgiving break did not reveal anything.

Barr and FBI Deputy Director David Bowditch described a chilling scene in which Alshamrani arrived at a schoolhouse and cased the building, walking around and shooting others in what Barr said was “in cold blood." Alshamrani’s rampage lasted 15 minutes, eight of which he was engaged by Navy security. Investigators found Alshamrani’s handgun, which they previously have said he purchased legally in July using a hunting loophole, as well as 180 rounds of ammunition. He also shot photos of President Donald Trump and a past commander in chief, Bowditch said.

But investigators said they may still be missing key pieces of evidence. The department has tried to gain access to two iPhones that Alshamrani carried, including one that he shot during the rampage and another that was found damaged in his car. FBI crime lab experts have gotten the phones working but “both are engineered to make it virtually impossible to unlock without the password,” Barr said.

Despite pleas to Apple, the company has so far not assisted in helping unlock the phones. A senior justice department official speaking on background said it is not clear that the company has the ability to do so.

“It is very important for us to know with whom and about what the shooter was communicating before he died,” Barr said, hinting at the larger issue of the law enforcement and privacy rights divide.

Barr also said that early reports that two other Saudi cadets arrived with Alshamrani and took video of the attack were incorrect. Those cadets “took some video of the resulting commotion around the building” and later cooperated fully with authorities, Barr said.

About a dozen Saudi students who knew Alshamrani were restricted to the Pensacola base by their commanding officer while the Pentagon reviewed policies and procedures guiding officials who screen international military students before being allowed into the U.S. to train.

That included a moratorium on all operational instruction for Saudi students in the country now, plus a bar on new students entering the training programs, Pentagon spokesman Jonathan R. Hoffman told reporters during a briefing in December.

Barr declined to speculate as to whether improved vetting would have deterred the attack. Pentagon spokesman Air Force Lt. Col Uriah Orland told Navy Times in an email late Monday afternoon that Defense Secretary Mark Esper "has the results of the vetting review and we will release appropriate information in the near future.”

The Navy posthumously advanced two enlisted sailors — Airman Mohammed S. Haitham and Airman Apprentice Cameron S. Walters — to naval aircrewman mechanical third class. Ensign Joshua K. Watson was advanced to aviator. Acting Navy Secretary Thomas B. Modly had previously awarded Haitham and Walters Wings of Gold, posthumously designating them naval aircrewmen.

Courtney Mabeus is a senior writer at Navy Times.

Link

Gee, what a surprise. Oh, wait, this was all about being kidded about his moustache, right? Hasn't that been the official story for the last five and a half months?

NAS Pensacola shooter had prior contact with Al Qaeda

quote:

Senior Justice Department officials told Fox News the 21-year-old shooter left a "trail of extremism" in the days and weeks leading up to the attack.

"During the course of the investigation, we learned that the shooter posted a message on September 11, [2019] stating, ‘the countdown has begun,’" Barr said in January. "During the Thanksgiving weekend, he then visited the 9/11 Memorial in New York City.

"He also posted other anti-American, anti-Israeli, and jihadi messages on social media, including two hours before his attack," Barr added.

Gosh, he must have really loved that moustache.

Oh... so he wasn't motivated because he had been bullied by culturally insensitive American military personnel??

I'm shocked.

------------------------------------

The individuals who brained this operation ought to be scrutinized and put out to pasture.

And water is wet...............
Maybe the DOD should tell us something we don't know. Like why they don't vet these people better before arrival and keep some sort of eye on them while they're here.
Why are foreign nationals on military installations here short term allowed to buy weapons when US soldiers/citizens of other states can not?
Sounds like the inventors of the Fast & Furious program came up with this brilliant idea.

quote:

Originally posted by 220-9er:
And water is wet...............
Maybe the DOD should tell us something we don't know. Like why they don't vet these people better before arrival and keep some sort of eye on them while they're here.
Why are foreign nationals on military installations here short term allowed to buy weapons when US soldiers/citizens of other states can not?
Sounds like the inventors of the Fast & Furious program came up with this brilliant idea.

Maybe the mantra of social justice, tolerance, equity, diversity dominant in much of public education these days. (The end result of such is to promote anti-American principles under the guise of a "higher" morality).

WTH! The FBI can crawl all over the likes of Gen Flynn's phone calls but never gave a thought to ck on this creep while he was in this country??? Nooo, they had to wait until he killed U.S. sailors and take 5 months to break into his iphone to find out just how bad he was. The likes of the Pensacola shooter was supposed to be the reason for the FISA court...

quote:

Originally posted by clipper1:
WTH! The FBI can crawl all over the likes of Gen Flynn's phone calls but never gave a thought to ck on this creep while he was in this country??? Nooo, they had to wait until he killed U.S. sailors and take 5 months to break into his iphone to find out just how bad he was. The likes of the Pensacola shooter was supposed to be the reason for the FISA court...

Part of my current job is forensically examining cell phones. I won't get into specifics as to tools or techniques, but getting into a modern smartphone, especially a current generation iPhone or Android device, without the passcode is one of those things that can take months (or years, or never). It can be done (sometimes), but it isn't a quick or cheap process. Apple (and Android)use end to end encryption and claim to have no back doors they can use to decrypt the data or unlock phones when provided with search warrants. I'll believe that the minute a family member of their board is a victim of something horrific and the data in their phone is the only thing that can locate and save them. In any case, Apple (and Android) very aggressively move to close any exploits that are discovered that allow access. I can have a phone that I know contains video evidence of horrific crimes against children, a search warrant in hand to examine the phone, and not be able to charge a suspect because we can't unlock the phone and extract the data. It's frustrating.

Copaup, my point being that the fbi had the power through fisa to ck his phone calls before he committed his crimes. He was a foreign national from a part of the world known to harbor jihadis. I would think that monitoring, even if infrequent, could have raised a red flag or two. Maybe it was just too PC to do so. Our fbi continues to disappoint.

I worked and lived in Riyadh and various parts of the Kingdom (Saudi Arabia) for a time.

The Saudis have a thing for being pilots. It seemed that every Saudi price (about 2,000 of them) claimed to be a "fighter pilot." At one point, I received direction to begin flying with Saudi's on sorties. As the Saudis weren't rated in the aircraft, I declined, but they did get placed in aircraft that didn't require a type, as a second in command, and they were disasters. Couldn't hold heading or altitude. Zero situational awareness. Attitudes.

A lot of their pilots, most of them, came to the US and got their first flight training in light, single engine piston-powered airplanes. Royalty went on to be "fighter pilots," but the civilian ones went back to the Kingdom with a guaranteed slot in Saudi Arabian Airlines.

I've dealt with Saudis as an instructor, and working alongside them in and out of the cockpit.

One individual mentioned to me that he had relatives fighting in Iraq for the insurgency. I passed this information to the Dept of State at the time, who didn't seem remotely concerned, or interested.

The Kingdom is an interesting place, not one I hope to return to. Somewhere I have a picture taken in a toy store, holding up a little rubber camel (kids version of a rubber ducky), and a package with a toy gun and grenade, called "my first terrorist." I kid not. Even the civilian compounds where foreigners live are guarded with multiple layers of walls, fences, wire, weapons, serpentines, angles, emplacements, trucks, sensors, stations, etc...for good reason, and several of them have been blown up in the past. It's absolutely not safe to live in the Kingdom; there is no reason to expect it around Saudis outside the kingdom.

Security on US military bases is notoriously lax. Even in combat areas, it's very lax, and I've been at locations in Iraq and Afghanistan where locating IED's on base was a regular thing. Kidnappings on base, too. Given that even in combat areas, frequently troops and contractors aren't allowed to have ammunition with their weapon or a magazine in or on the weapon, it's little surprise that minimal or no armed response came at Pensacola. Worse that the system dropped back to a state of unreadiness again, quickly forgetting what just happened. I have been on several bases recently, domestically and abroad, with what, in my opinion, was woefully inadequate security or oversight.

Service members deserve better. The country deserves better. And our "friends" in the Kingdom aren't going to change. Many of them are perfectly fine, but neither they, nor we, will ever know which ones.

quote:

Originally posted by clipper1:
Copaup, my point being that the fbi had the power through fisa to ck his phone calls before he committed his crimes. He was a foreign national from a part of the world known to harbor jihadis. I would think that monitoring, even if infrequent, could have raised a red flag or two. Maybe it was just too PC to do so. Our fbi continues to disappoint.

Indeed, a failure of background security investigation at multiple-levels:
* Saudi military, have low expectations for them, however this guy was in their service for nearly 6-years and nobody over there either acted on any information that this guy was a subversive, there was tacit approval from a key few along in the course of his career or, their system is broken, so it wouldn't have mattered what kind of check's were in place.

* FBI and DoD- once again, some extra scrutiny into this guy's (and his friends who videos the shooting) background, particularly his electronic trail, may have paid-off and prevented this. Given the volume of int'l students attending US schools, this is pretty difficult however, if you've got students from particular countries, then they get an investigator assigned to dig into their background. Given the FISA abuses against US citizen, the confidence of domestic security services continues to plummet. Navy CID should've had agents watching these guys, if anything, set a honey pot or, get some of our interpreters back from the sandbox and use them as informant plants, make them 'feel at home'.

https://www.longwarjournal.org...o-aqap-fbi-finds.php

quote:

The FBI and Department of Justice (DOJ) announced today that Mohammed Saeed Alshamrani (Al-Shamrani), the terrorist who carried out the Dec. 6, 2019 shooting at Naval Air Station Pensacola, had “significant ties” to Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP).

Investigators reached this conclusion after the FBI cracked the encryption on two of AlShamrani’s iPhones. AlShamrani, a member of the Royal Saudi Air Force, was in the U.S. as part of a training program. But he was secretly planning something else. Alshamrani “had specific conversations with overseas AQAP associates about plans and tactics,” according to the DOJ. “In fact,” the DOJ says, Alshamrani “was communicating with AQAP right up until the attack, and conferred with his associates until the night before he undertook the murders.”

Alshamrani and “his AQAP associates communicated using end-to-end encrypted apps, with warrant-proof encryption, deliberately in order to evade law enforcement.”

Not only was Alshamrani in contact with AQAP members just before his shooting spree, he began preparing for his day of terror “years ago.” Alshamrani was “radicalized” by 2015 and joined the Royal Saudi Air Force “in order to carry out a ‘special operation’.”

Therefore, the DOJ’s statement indicates that Alshamrani was a sleeper agent of sorts — just as AQAP alleged.
...

From the Pensacola News JournaL. In part: "The U.S. Navy has released their investigative report into the deadline December 2019 terrorist attack at NAS Pensacola. An armed Lt. Mohammad Saeed Al-Shamrani, an international flight student from Saudi Arabia, entered the Naval Aviation Schools Command building about 6:40 a.m. He killed three sailors and injured five additional military and civilian personnel.

Al-Shamrani was shot and killed by an Escambia County Sheriff’s Office deputy.

Ensign Joshua K. Watson, Airman Mohammed S. Haitham and Airman Apprentice Cameron S. Walters were dead.

The 260 page report found “the self-radicalization of 2nd Lt. Al-Shamrani was the primary cause of this fatal attack. However, his actions and behaviors, along with the organizational environment inherent in the aviation pipeline, likely increased his probability of committing an insider attack.”

This is outrageous, one of the stupidest things I have ever read. The report seems to blame everyone but the shooter. Has Political Correctness gone this far into fantasy land? "Adverse microclimate", "Toxic climate", "Self radicalized". There was a failure to vett that guy, he had no business being in the U.S. Have they forgotten where the 9/11 hijackers came from? Whomever wrote that report needs to have their head examined. No doubt the newspaper arsonists have cherry picked the most inflammatory passages but this is just ludicrous.
Link:
http://www.northescambia.com/2...zed-in-toxic-climate

quote:

Originally posted by HayesGreener:

However, his actions and behaviors, along with the organizational environment inherent in the aviation pipeline, likely increased his probability of committing an insider attack.”

Yeah, that's stupid. How many THOUSANDS of people went through that pipeline WITHOUT murdering their classmates?

Cast blame anywhere but where it belongs.

quote:

Originally posted by HayesGreener:. . . Has Political Correctness gone this far into fantasy land?. . .

Yes. Increasingly in America, political correctness supersedes integrity.

Why did deputies have to put him down? How long was he wandering the air station before the deputies got there? Does the Navy not have armed security at their bases?

quote:

Originally posted by Skull Leader:
Why did deputies have to put him down? How long was he wandering the air station before the deputies got there? Does the Navy not have armed security at their bases?

They have an agreement with the Sheriff that they respond to such events. Base police also responded, the deputy was in the right place and time

Is NAS still closed to poor schlubs like me that just want to put flowers or Christmas decorations on my parents grave?