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By Sadie Gurman and Dustin Volz 

The Saudi aviation student who killed three people at a Florida Navy base last year was in touch with a suspected al Qaeda operative, a person familiar with the investigation said, a discovery authorities made based on information found in the gunman's locked iPhones.

Second Lt. Mohammed Alshamrani, a member of the Saudi air force who was training with the U.S. military, posted anti-U.S. messages on social media about two hours before he opened fire in a classroom at Naval Air Station Pensacola on Dec. 6, officials have said.

Attorney General William Barr called the attack an act of terrorism and pressured Apple Inc. to help unlock a pair of the gunman's iPhones that he said could provide more information about his radicalization.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation, bypassing Apple's security features, was ultimately able to access information on at least one of two phones, the person said, and found that the gunman had communicated with the suspected al Qaeda operative.

At a news conference Monday, FBI Director Christopher Wray said law enforcement received "effectively no help" from Apple in their probe, delaying the investigation and potentially jeopardizing public safety.

"Because the crucial evidence on the killer's phones was kept from us, we did all that investigating not knowing what we do now, valuable intelligence about what to ask," Mr. Wray said. "If we had, that around-the-clock, all-hands-on-deck effort would have been a lot more productive."

The FBI declined to comment on the al Qaeda link.

During the attack, Alshamrani made statements critical of U.S. military actions overseas and fired shots at a picture of President Trump, officials said. In the weeks beforehand, the gunman used social media to blame the U.S. for crimes against Muslims, officials said, issuing a warning on the anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks that "the countdown has started."

It wasn't immediately known whether the suspected al Qaeda operative directed the shooting, which also left eight injured and prompted the expulsion of 21 Saudi military students from a training program. Alshamrani was killed by responding sheriff's deputies.

Mr. Barr's January request of Apple jump-started a long-simmering fight between law enforcement and Silicon Valley over encryption technology. Mr. Barr said Apple didn't provide any "substantive assistance" to break into two phones belonging to the gunman, which were locked with unknown pass codes and encrypted.

Apple countered at the time that it had provided timely and thorough answers to the Justice Department's requests for help in the investigation and provided a "wide variety of information" to law enforcement, including iCloud backup data and account and transactional information.

But Mr. Barr said that only a look at data and communications on the gunman's phones could help them say for certain whether he discussed his plans with others.

Mobile-phone security experts said at the time that the FBI could likely work with a third-party vendor to unlock the phone, as it had done in previous cases. Apple didn't immediately respond to a request for comment Monday.

The connection to al Qaeda will also pose a challenge for the FBI, which has been focused in recent years on trying to stop attacks inspired by Islamic State. Mr. Wray told lawmakers earlier this year that the FBI remains concerned that al Qaeda intends to carry out large-scale attacks in the U.S.

"Al Qaeda maintains its desire for large scale spectacular attacks," Mr. Wray said in February, adding that sustained counterterrorism pressure has degraded the group's Afghanistan-Pakistan senior leadership. "So in the near term, al Qaeda is more likely to focus on building its international affiliates and supporting small-scale, readily achievable attacks in key regions such as East and West Africa. Simultaneously, over the last year, propaganda from al Qaeda leaders seeks to inspire individuals to conduct their own attacks in the U.S. and the West."

Write to Sadie Gurman at sadie.gurman@wsj.com and Dustin Volz at dustin.volz@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

May 18, 2020 12:03 ET (16:03 GMT)

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