On the menu today: You’re going to want to read this one all the way to the end, because in the last two weeks, we’ve had four separate Islamist terrorist attacks or attempted attacks against Americans on U.S. soil. None of the perpetrators snuck into the country illegally; they were welcomed in and, in some cases, given U.S. citizenship. And most egregiously, you’re seeing Democratic elected lawmakers try to blame American gun owners for the awful decisions made by the U.S. government.
Terrorism at Home
Yesterday, ROTC students subdued and killed a gunman who yelled “Allahu Akbar” before opening fire in an Old Dominion University classroom, killing one and wounding two. From the Virginian-Pilot:
A man once convicted of offering support to a terrorist group burst into an ROTC classroom at Old Dominion University on Thursday morning and opened fire, killing one person and wounding two others. The students disarmed and killed him.
The FBI later identified the shooter as Mohamed Bailor Jalloh. A former Army National Guardsman, Jalloh was sentenced in February 2017 for providing support to the designated foreign terrorist organization Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, more commonly referred by its acronym: ISIL.
A source close to the investigation said Jalloh was heard to shout the Arabic phrase for God is great — “Allahu akbar” — during the attack.
In less than 10 minutes, the shooting was over. Jalloh was dead. And three other people were injured. Two victims were taken to Sentara Norfolk General Hospital, where one of them died.
U.S. Rep. Jen Kiggans identified the man killed as Lt. Col. Brandon Shah, the head of the university’s Army Reserve Officers’ Training Corps program and a professor of military science.
The city of Norfolk’s Commonwealth’s Attorney — the local chief prosecutor — Ramin Fatehi did his best to muddy the waters on Thursday afternoon, demonizing law-abiding gun owners in the aftermath of an Islamist terrorist attack:
We live in a country where people care more about guns than they care about six-year-old children. They care more about guns than they care about synagogue worshippers. And they care more about guns than they do about college students. What that means is that it does not matter how hard OCU President [Brian] Hemphill works, how hard the chiefs work, somebody will be a victim eventually. It is a matter of time. And until there is the political will to break the spell of the cult of gun absolutism, you will see more incidents like this.
Except it wasn’t the “cult of gun absolutism” at work in Norfolk yesterday. It was the cult of ISIS.
Back in 2016, Jalloh plead guilty to charges of attempting to provide material support to the Islamic State. That’s a felony. As a convicted felon, Jalloh is not allowed to purchase or own a firearm unless he goes through the fairly lengthy and complicated process of restoring his firearm rights. At this time, there’s no evidence Jalloh did that, and if someone within the government did restore his firearm rights, then we’ve got the biggest scandal since the then U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service sent official documents for Mohamed Atta and Marwan Alshehhi to Huffman Aviation International, a small flight training school in Venice, Fla., on March 11, 2002. (For our younger readers, those men were two of the 19 hijackers who committed the 9/11 attacks, which had occurred six months earlier.)
According to the statement of facts filed with the plea agreement back in 2016:
[Jalloh] claimed he knew how to shoot guns and praised the gunman who killed five U.S. military members in a terrorist attack in Chattanooga, Tennessee, in July 2015. Jalloh also stated that he had been thinking about conducting an attack similar to the November 2009, attack at Ft. Hood, Texas, which killed 13 people and wounded 32 others.
He told an FBI confidential human source that he had decided not to re-enlist after listening to online lectures by Anwar al-Awlaki, a deceased leader of Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). Jalloh had recently taken a six-month trip to Africa, where he had met with an ISIL facilitator in Nigeria and first began communicating online with the ISIL member who later brokered his introduction to the CHS. During their meeting, Jalloh also told the CHS that he thought about conducting an attack all the time, and that he was close to doing so at one point.
According to the statement of facts filed with the plea agreement, in June 2016, Jalloh travelled to North Carolina to obtain firearms. On July 2, Jalloh went to a gun dealership in northern Virginia, where he test-fired and purchased an assault rifle. Unbeknownst to Jalloh, the rifle had been rendered inoperable before he took custody of it. Jalloh was arrested the following day and the FBI seized the rifle.
This guy is — was — a straight-up ISIS terrorist.
It wasn’t America’s gun owners who decided to allow Jalloh into this country; that was the government’s decision.
It wasn’t America’s gun owners who gave him an eleven-year prison sentence when prosecutors asked for 20 years, and it wasn’t America’s gun owners who released him from prison after less than seven years; that was our criminal justice system.
It wasn’t America’s gun owners who decided to allow him to stay in this country after he had been convicted of providing material support to a terrorist group and repeatedly stated that he wanted to kill Americans; that was the government’s decision. It wasn’t America’s gun owners who decided there was no need to keep Jalloh under surveillance.
Where the hell were you, Ramin Fatehi? You’ve been a prosecutor in Norfolk since 2012 and the city’s commonwealth attorney since 2022. You boast on your campaign website:
Ramin is a proud Democrat, a progressive prosecutor, and Norfolk’s champion for criminal justice reform. Ramin has led the charge in Norfolk to fund Virginia’s first Witness Protection Program, to decriminalize and legalize marijuana possession, to abolish cash bail, to abolish the jury trial penalty, and to make the justice system honor the principle that Black Lives Matter.
How did a guy convicted of supporting ISIS end up getting his hands on a gun in your jurisdiction, Ramin Fatehi? When a convicted ISIS terrorist struck, why was the protection of that classroom up to a group of Army ROTC cadets?
Fatehi ran unopposed in the 2021 and 2025 general elections.
Since at least 2017, congressional Republicans have attempted to pass the TRACER Act, which would require that state and local law enforcement be notified when federal prisoners convicted of terrorism charges are released from prison into their communities. It has yet to pass. Some past studies have contended, “Recidivism among extremists is notably low, even with an extended period of observation, indicating that extremists may have a low propensity for re-offending.”
Eh, this morning, that propensity for re-offending doesn’t look quite as low as everyone hoped it was, now, does it?
Islamists Attack Americans, Part Two
Meanwhile, in another state, another legal immigrant from a Muslim country attempted his own attack against innocent Americans:
The armed man who rammed his vehicle into one of the nation’s largest Reform synagogues Thursday has been identified as a 41-year-old naturalized citizen born in Lebanon, according to federal officials.
Ayman Mohamad Ghazali was fatally shot by security officers after driving through a hallway at Temple Israel in West Bloomfield Township near Detroit, Michigan, in a vehicle that then caught fire, authorities said.
Ghazali came to the U.S. in 2011 on an immediate relative visa as the spouse of a U.S. citizen and was granted U.S. citizenship in 2016, according to the Department of Homeland Security.
Jennifer Runyan, the special agent in charge of the FBI’s Detroit field office, called the crime a “targeted act of violence against the Jewish community” and said at a news conference Thursday that the FBI is leading the investigation.
Thankfully, none of the synagogue’s staff, teachers, or the 140 children at its early childhood center were injured.
Note that Ghazali was allowed into the country as the husband of a U.S. citizen, and divorced his wife in 2024. Investigators told the Detroit News that “Ghazali had at least four relatives, including a sibling, killed days earlier in a military strike in Lebanon.”
Also note that everyone involved in the DHS response to yesterday’s attack isn’t getting paid.
Islamists Attack Americans, Part Three
Meanwhile, up in New York City, the U.S. Department of Justice has released the details of its charges against Emir Balat and Ibrahim Kayumi, the guys who brought and hurled two explosive devices at police near Gracie Mansion Saturday.
Following his arrest, while en route to the NYPD precinct, Balat stated to NYPD officers: “this isn’t a religion that just stands when people talk about the blessed name of the prophet . . . We take action! We take action!”; and “if I didn’t do it someone else will come and do it.” Then, after arriving at the NYPD precinct, Balat requested a piece of paper and, after being given a paper and pen, wrote the following: “All praise is due to Allah lord of all worlds! I pledge my allegiance to the Islamic State. Die in your rage yu [sic] kuffar! Emir B.” “Kuffar” is an Arabic term that refers to “non-believers” or “infidels,” and “Die in your rage” is a slogan used by ISIS.
Law enforcement officers later asked Balat if he was familiar with the Boston Marathon bombing, and if that was what Balat had hoped to accomplish. Balat responded: “No, even bigger. It was only three deaths.”
After Kayumi was arrested, and as he was being placed inside an NYPD vehicle to be transported from the scene to an NYPD precinct, an individual from the surrounding crowd yelled to Kayumi and asked why Kayumi had done this. Kayumi responded, “ISIS.” Then, at the NYPD precinct, in response to a question from law enforcement about whether he was affiliated with ISIS, Kayumi indicated that he was. He further stated, in substance and part, that: (i) he has watched ISIS propaganda on his phone; (ii) his actions that day were partly inspired by ISIS; (iii) he did not feel comfortable holding the Devices earlier that day; and (iv) he would not feel comfortable if the Devices were in the interrogation room with him.
The two young men were born in the U.S. to immigrant parents and have recently traveled to the Middle East for long stretches:
Investigators are looking into the overseas travel for Balat and Kayumi. Balat left the U.S. for several months and traveled to Istanbul from May 6 to Aug. 26, 2025. He most recently traveled back to the U.S. from Turkey in January of this year. Meanwhile, Kayumi traveled to Istanbul for several weeks in July and August 2024 and to Saudi Arabia in late March of that year.
Federal investigators have also been interviewing family members of Balat and Kayumi as part of their investigation, as well as looking at their online communications.
Balat’s parents were born in Turkey and were naturalized as U.S. citizens in 2017. Balat is a U.S. citizen and has been living with his family in a large two-story home in Pennsylvania. A woman at the residence confirmed to CBS Philadelphia that Balat lived at the house.
Kayumi’s parents are originally from Afghanistan. They became naturalized U.S. citizens in 2004 and 2009.
Look at the bright side: We finally have an ISIS attack that Democrats can’t blame on America’s gun owners.
Islamists Attack Americans, Part Four
Brittany Freeman and Lori Jane Gliha of Scripps News have done a welcome deep dive into the background of Ndiaga Diagne, the man who killed four people and injured 15 more in downtown Austin on March 1. Among the lowlights:
Years before Ndiaga Diagne was accused of a mass shooting outside a crowded Texas bar, he was accused of making a string of violent threats against his wife, an auto shop employee, and even himself. . . .
Records obtained by Scripps News show authorities responded to numerous complaints about threats made by Diagne in the years leading up to the mass shooting. None of the encounters resulted in arrest or criminal charges.
In 2020, a Bexar county sheriff’s report shows Diagne’s then-wife reported he grabbed her left arm and “yanked” her out of his vehicle as she attempted to hug their child, and later shoved her to the ground. She told police he “threatened to ‘kill her in the city’ and also beat her with the steering wheel locking tool.” After Diagne left, his wife called police. According to the report, she told a deputy she did not want to pursue charges.
In September 2022, court records show the couple’s marriage ended in divorce. A decree of divorce found Diagne “has a history or pattern of committing family violence.” . . .
After Diagne’s photo was shown on the news after the mass shooting, attorneys for a Texas woman said she came to a startling realization: the killer was the same man who attacked her months ago at work.
In a lawsuit filed this week, 65-year-old Lillian Mendoza Brady alleged Diagne “physically assaulted” her after he had been on a “sanctioned” prayer break in a common area at their shared workplace, a factory for the automaker Tesla.
This guy had more red flags than a Chinese army parade, but the system never took a step to put him behind bars or expel him from the country.
Diagne entered the United States in March 2000 on a B‑2 tourist visa, according to the Department of Homeland Security. (Note that while an applicant can get extensions, usually a B-2 tourist visa only allows a person to stay in the country for 180 days.) Law enforcement sources report that Diagne was arrested one year later in Times Square on June 29, 2001, along 45th Street and Broadway for illegal vending; he was caught selling sunglasses without a license.
In June 2006, he became a lawful permanent resident after marrying a U.S. citizen and was naturalized in 2013, the outlets reported.
Why did we let this guy become a naturalized citizen? What did he bring to the United States that this country really needed? What, we didn’t have enough native rage-aholic wife-beaters?
Note that so far, in all these attacks, we have no discernible ties to the Iranian regime.
But we do have a lot of stated ties to ISIS.
When Iran needs help, ISIS comes running.
ADDENDUM: Sky News headline, March 12: “U.S. Navy to escort oil tankers through Strait of Hormuz, treasury secretary tells Sky News.”
CNBC headline, March 12: “Energy Secretary Wright says U.S. ‘not ready’ to escort oil tankers through Strait of Hormuz yet”
The two cabinet secretaries’ statements are not quite as contradictory as the headlines would suggest, however.
Speaking to Sky News‘ Wilfred Frost, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said: “My belief is that as soon as it is militarily possible, the U.S. Navy, perhaps with an international coalition, will be escorting vessels through.”
Meanwhile on CNBC, Energy Secretary Chris Wright said it is likely that the Navy will be in a position to escort tankers by the end of this month.
“It’ll happen relatively soon but it can’t happen now. We’re simply not ready. All of our military assets right now are focused on destroying Iran’s offensive capabilities and the manufacturing industry that supplies their offensive capabilities. . . . I’ll be over at the Pentagon later today — that is what the military is working on.”