The man suspected of opening fire inside an Old Dominion University academic building on Thursday has been identified as a previously convicted Islamic State supporter who had recently returned to American streets.
According to the Gateway Pundit, Fox News journalist Karol Markowicz reported, Im reliably informed that the alleged attacker of Old Dominion is Mohamed Jalloh. She added, The same Jalloh who was previously convicted of providing support to ISIL.
Fox News correspondent Bill Melugin said he is independently hearing the same name, stating that the Old Dominion shooter is believed to be Mohamed Jalloh. NBC News likewise reported that Mohammad Jalloh, recently released from prison, has been identified as the suspect in the campus shooting.
Jalloh, a naturalized U.S. citizen originally from Sierra Leone, was sentenced in 2017 to 11 years in federal prison on a terrorism charge. He had been convicted of attempting to provide material support to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), raising immediate questions about why a known extremist was back in the community.
A 2016 Justice Department press release detailed how Mohamed Bailor Jalloh, a former member of the Army National Guard, was arrested on July 3 for attempting to provide material support to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). The complaint alleged that Jalloh tried to assist in the procurement of weapons to be used in what he believed was going to be an attack on U.S. soil committed in the name of ISIL, and that he also attempted to provide money to help individuals seeking to join the terrorist group.
Federal officials at the time underscored the seriousness of the case. Assistant Attorney General for National Security John P. Carlin, U.S. Attorney Dana J. Boente of the Eastern District of Virginia and FBI Washington Field Office Assistant Director in Charge Paul M. Abbate announced the charges, noting that Jalloh was to make his initial appearance before U.S. Magistrate Judge John F. Anderson in Alexandria.
Court records show that in March 2016, a now-deceased ISIL member arranged contact between Jalloh, then 26 and living in Sterling, Virginia, and an individual in the United States who was actually an FBI confidential human source (CHS). The ISIL operative was actively plotting an attack in the United States and believed the attack would be carried out with the assistance of Jalloh and the CHS, according to those documents.
Investigators said Jalloh met with the CHS twice in April and May 2016. During the April encounter, Jalloh revealed he had served in the Army National Guard but quit after listening to online lectures by Anwar al-Aulaqi, the deceased Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula leader whose propaganda has inspired multiple jihadist attacks.
Jalloh further disclosed that he had recently taken a six-month trip to Africa, where he met ISIL members in Nigeria and began communicating online with the ISIL figure who later connected him to the CHS. During their discussions, Jalloh also told the CHS that he often thought about conducting an attack and that he knew how to shoot guns.
He reportedly praised the terrorist who murdered five U.S. service members in Chattanooga, Tennessee, in July 2015. He also stated that he had been thinking about conducting an attack similar to the November 2009 attack at Ft. Hood, Texas, underscoring his fixation on high-profile acts of jihadist violence against Americans.
Local outlet WTKR reported that one victim has died and two others were wounded in the Old Dominion shooting. Authorities have also confirmed that the gunman is deceased, ending the immediate threat but not the broader concerns about domestic security and vetting failures.
FBI Director Kash Patel said the incident is being investigated as an act of terrorism. For many Americans, the case will renew scrutiny of lenient sentencing, early release policies, and the federal governments willingness to put known radicalized individuals back into civilian life despite clear warning signs documented years before the latest bloodshed.
Login