A routine Thursday morning at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia was suddenly interrupted when Mohamed Jalloh erupted fire on campus.
The fire eruption inside on the school’s campus resulted in one killing and two injuries. The gunman was also killed.
Mohamed Jalloh
According to CNN, Jalloh is a former Army National Guardsman who previously served prison time for attempting to provide material support to ISIS a decade ago.
Before the attack began, the outlet notes, FBI Special Agent In Charge Dominique Evans said Jalloh shouted “Allahu Akbar” — or “God is greater.”
“Brave ROTC members in that room subdued him, and if not for them, I’m not sure what else he may have done,” Evans said Thursday.
One of the students proceeded to stab Jalloh, according to multiple law enforcement sources briefed on the case. The attacker’s ultimate cause of death is unclear.
The 36-year-old served in the Virginia Army National Guard as a combat engineer from April 2009 to April 2015, having no deployments. He left the Army as a specialist, which is a junior rank that a soldier achieves automatically after four years.
Planned attack
Jalloh strategically made the attack amid the Muslim holy month of Ramadan — a time of fasting and spiritual renewal for most Muslims.
As Jalloh supported ISIS in 2016, he commented that he believed Ramadan would be the ideal time to carry out an attack, according to court records.
Court documents say Jalloh became radicalized after consuming extremist propaganda, including lectures from al-Qaeda-linked cleric Anwar al-Awlaki. He told an FBI confidential informant that he had considered carrying out an attack in the United States and believed such operations were “the right thing.”
In 2016, Jalloh tried to procure weapons to be used in what he believed would be an attack committed in the name of ISIS and also tried to donate money to the group.
He also praised past attacks on U.S. military targets, including the November 2009 attack at Fort Hood that killed 13 people and wounded 32 others.
Jalloh was later arrested for attempting to provide material support to ISIS on July 3, 2016. He pleaded guilty that year, and in October 2017, he was sentenced to 11 years in federal prison followed by five years of supervised release, the FBI said. Prosecutors recommended he serve 20 years in prison.
There is cuurrently no ongoing threat to the ODU campus community.