Sunday, 08 Dec 2019 09:30 AM MYT
The revelation about the dinner party came as authorities probed whether the shooter had any accomplices. The SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors jihadist media, identified the gunman as Mohammed al-Shamrani, saying he had posted a short manifesto on Twitter prior to the attack that read: “I’m against evil, and America as a whole has turned into a nation of evil.”
No terror group has claimed the attack, and the shooter did not have any apparent terror ties, the Times reported, citing an unnamed senior American official. The shooting marks a setback in the kingdom’s efforts to shrug off its longstanding reputation for promoting religious extremism after the September 11, 2001 attacks in which 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudis.
Trump said King Salman and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the country’s de facto ruler, would “help out the families very greatly,” though he did not specify how.