13 dead in Navy Yard shooting; one suspect dead, two sought

WASHINGTON — At least 13 people died Monday during a shooting at the Washington Navy Yard, officials said. One gunman died in the shooting, and police are seeking another possible shooter.

The Navy Yard was placed on lockdown after shots were fired inside a building on the base, the U.S. Navy said. A Metro police officer and naval base officer were among those injured in the shooting, according to the D.C. Metro Police.

The suspected gunman was identified by the FBI as Aaron Alexis, a 34-year-old from Queens, New York, most recently residing in Fort Worth, Texas.

Alexis was arrested in Fort Worth in 2010 for for discharging a firearm in city limits, police records show. Charges were never filed.

Washington Mayor Vincent Gray said Alexis was shot during an exchange with the Metro Police officer.

[Full coverage: Washington Navy Yard shooting]

"As far as we know, it's an isolated incident," Gray said. "We have no known motive at this stage."

The mayor said there was "no reason at this stage" to believe it was terrorism, but would not rule it out.

D.C. Police Chief Cathy Lanier said authorities were seeking a potential second suspect, described as a black male, approximately 40 to 50 years old, 5 foot 10, 180 pounds, medium complexion with gray sideburns, wearing an olive military-style uniform and carrying "a long gun."

Before a scheduled economic speech at the White House, President Barack Obama deplored "yet another mass shooting" — this one targeting military and civilian personnel.

“These are men and women who were going to work, doing their job, protecting all of us," Obama said. "They’re patriots, and they know the dangers of serving abroad. But today they faced the unimaginable: violence that they wouldn’t have expected here at home."

"We will do everything in our power to make sure that whoever carried out this cowardly act is held responsible," the president added. "I want the investigation to be seamless."

Janis Orlowski, chief medical officer at Washington Hospital Center, said one Metropolitan Police officer and two civilians are being treated there. All three arrived in critical condition, Orlowski said, but are expected to make a full recovery.

One was shot in the legs, another in the shoulder. Those victims were in surgery, Orlowski said. A woman who was shot in the head and hand would not need surgery because the bullet did not penetrate her skull.

The Navy said shots were fired at the Naval Sea Systems Command Headquarters building on the base at 8:20 a.m., and a "shelter in place" order was issued for Navy Yard personnel.

Rick Mason, a program management specialist, told Yahoo News he was on the fourth floor when he saw someone with a shotgun aiming down into the atrium. The gunman, Mason said, was targeting people who walked into the cafeteria.

Other employees described a chaotic scene.

"We heard two shots and started wondering if that was the sound of someone dropping something or if they were really shots," Omar Grant, a civilian employee at the Navy Yard who was on the first floor of the atrium, said. "We heard three more shots, and that's when people started running out of the building and getting the hell out of there."

Grant then led a blind colleague to safety.

Approximately 3,000 people work in the building, the Navy said, though it's unclear how many people were inside at the time of the shooting.

The U.S. Senate complex was locked down "in light of the uncertainty surrounding the shooting at the Navy Yard this morning and particularly the possibility of suspects remaining at large," the Senate said in an alert to staffers. "You may move about the building; however, for the next two hours you may not leave nor can anyone enter the building."

A White House official said the president had been briefed several times throughout the morning about the unfolding situation at the Navy Yard by assistant to the president for homeland security and counterterrorism Lisa Monaco and deputy chief of staff Alyssa Mastromanaco.

A heavy SWAT and police presence could be seen around the Navy Yard. Outside the base, employees sat huddled, crying and holding each other. At least one of the victims was airlifted from the scene, as helicopters circled overhead.

A temporary ground stop was ordered at Reagan National Airport, and schools in the area were placed on temporary lockdown.

The 41-acre Navy Yard, located five blocks from Nationals Stadium and a mile and a half from the Capitol, is home to the chief of naval operations and headquarters for the Naval Historical Center and numerous naval commands.

The Washington Nationals postponed Monday's home game against the Atlanta Braves in the wake of the tragedy.

According to the Navy's website, Naval Sea Systems "engineers, builds, buys and maintains the Navy's ships and submarines and their combat systems." Approximately 60,000 people work there.

— With Olivier Knox reporting from the White House.

Suspect identified in Washington Navy shooting

Officials say Aaron Alexis, a 34-year-old from Texas, was one of the men behind the rampage at the Navy Yard in D.C.
At least 12 dead

Al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahri speaks from an unknown location, in this still image taken from video uploaded on a social media website June 8, 2011. REUTERS/Social Media Website via Reuters TV

By Myra MacDonald

LONDON (Reuters) - Al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahri has issued his first specific guidelines for jihad, urging restraint in attacking other Muslim sects and non-Muslims and in starting conflicts in countries where jihadis might find a safe base to promote their ideas.

The document, published by the SITE monitoring service, provides a rare look at al Qaeda's strategy 12 years after the September 11 attacks on the United States and the nature of its global ambitions from North Africa to the Caucasus to Kashmir.

While al Qaeda's military aim remained to weaken the United States and Israel, Zawahri stressed the importance of "dawa", or missionary work, to spread its ideas.

"As far as targeting the proxies of America is concerned, it differs from place to place. The basic principle is to avoid entering into any conflict with them, except in the countries where confronting them becomes inevitable," he said.

Those comments are particularly relevant for North Africa, where many analysts believe al Qaeda is using the less restrictive environment which followed the 2011 Arab uprisings to seek new followers, often through local alliances, while avoiding drawing attention to itself by eschewing attacks.

"...our struggle is a long one, and jihad is in need of safe bases," Zawahri said in his "general guidelines for jihad" posted on jihadi forums.

Zawahri spelled out where conflict was inevitable, including Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Yemen and Somalia.

In Pakistan, where intelligence sources believe Zawahri is hiding, he said fighting "aims at creating a safe haven for the mujahideen in Pakistan, which can then be used as a launching pad for the struggle of establishing an Islamic system..."

Al Qaeda has a strong support network inside Pakistan - its founder Osama bin Laden lived there until his death in May 2011. It also has close ties to the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, with which the Pakistan government has said it will hold peace talks.

Zawahri cited the need to weaken Algeria - which crushed Islamist militants in a civil war in the 1990s - and spread jihadi influence throughout the Maghreb and West Africa.

And in an apparent nod to those who say al Qaeda's focus on the United States weakens their battle against governments at home, he endorsed the right of militants to fight Russians in the Caucasus, Indians in Kashmir and Chinese in Xinjiang.

AVOID ATTACKING OTHER SECTS

Founded in 1988 during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, al Qaeda has adapted to the Western onslaught against it which followed the September 11 attacks by building a network of alliances and affiliates in Muslim countries around the world.

Adept at exploiting conflicts like Afghanistan and Iraq, the Arab uprisings have given al Qaeda a new lease of life - in Syria, for example, fighters loyal to al Qaeda play a powerful role in the opposition to President Bashar al-Assad.

But its indiscriminate violence, including suicide bombings and targeting of Shi'ite Muslims, has made it unpopular among many Muslims.

Zawahri called on his mainly Salafist followers to avoid attacking other Muslim sects, and said if they were attacked, they should limit their response to those involved in fighting.

They should also leave alone Christians, Hindus and Sikhs living in Muslim lands, respect the lives of women and children and refrain from targeting enemies in mosques, markets and gatherings where they mix with Muslims they were not fighting.

But while affiliates subscribe to al Qaeda's ideology, they are largely autonomous in day-to-day operations, making it hard for Zawahri to control the behavior of their fighters.

"The biggest theme in Zawahri's document is restraint," Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, a expert at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said on Twitter. "This seems to acknowledge the excesses that have tarnished AQ's brand."

The document was posted on Sept 13, according to SITE, although it was unclear when the guidelines were written by Zawahri, whose messages - based on their content - appear to take weeks to be smuggled out from where he is in hiding.

(Editing by Mike Collett-White)

Al-Qaida releases new 'guidelines for jihad'

The terror group urges followers to start conflicts in countries where they'll have a safe base to promote their ideas.
Move to missionary work

Russia is to reestablish its military presence in the resource-rich Arctic by re-opening a Soviet-era base to patrol the increasingly navigable Northern Sea Route, President Vladimir Putin said Monday.

Putin said 10 naval ships had arrived at the New Siberian Islands in the Arctic Ocean, as Russia asserts its rights over an area where vast energy resources are becoming more accessible as the sea ice retreats.

"Our forces left in 1993, but this is a very important point in the Northern Arctic," Putin said during a video-conference with defence ministry officials.

He said Russia wanted to "ensure the security and effectiveness of work on the Northern Sea Route, so Russia can effectively control this part of its territory."

Russia hopes to exploit the shipping lane, which runs from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific, as a channel for shipments of oil and gas to markets in Asia.

In 2007, Russian submarines placed the country's flag on the seabed more than two miles under the North Pole, staking claim to hydrocarbons estimated to be worth billions of dollars.

Warmer temperatures in the Arctic Ocean have increased the length of time that the passage remains open to shipping.

Ten ships from the Northern Fleet -- three warships, four atomic ice breakers and seven supply ships -- arrived last week, Putin said.

The taskforce, led by the navy's most powerful battleship, the Peter the Great, arrived two decades after the collapse of the Soviet Union led Russia to abandon its base there.

The commander of the northern fleet, Vladimir Korolyov said that the ships' crews had built a temporary camp on the islands where temperatures that can fall to -50 degrees Celsius (-58 Fahrenheit).

"We will not only recreate the military base, but we will also restore the aerodrome," Putin said.

The aerodrome will be expanded to allow heavy cargo planes to land all year round, first deputy defence minister Arkady Bakhin told the RIA-Novosti news agency on Saturday.

"We have arrived, or rather we have returned permanently, because this is truly Russian soil," Bakhin said.

Obama OKs anti-chemical weapons gear for Syrian rebels

U.S. President Barack Obama walks from his residence to the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, September 10, 2013. REUTERS/Jason Reed

President Barack Obama on Monday formally cleared the way for the U.S. to send equipment and training to vetted Syrian rebels, enabling them to resist a chemical weapons attack, the White House said.

Obama issued a memorandum to Secretary of State John Kerry saying that such assistance “is essential to the national security interests of the United States.”

The announcement came in the aftermath of an Aug. 21 chemical weapons attack in a Damascus suburb. The U.S. and its allies say Syrian President Bashar Assad’s forces were behind the attack and have placed the death toll at over 1,000, including hundreds of children.

The president’s decision to equip the rebels seems to indicate that U.S. officials worry Assad might be tempted to use chemical weapons against those fighting to oust him even as the U.S. and Russia work out a plan to place the Syrian arsenal under international control to be destroyed.

But U.S. officials underlined that the decision had been in the works before last month's slaughter.

The new aid may include “defensive chemical weapons-related training and personal protective equipment to select vetted members of the Syrian opposition, including the Supreme Military Council, to protect against the use of chemical weapons,” National Security Council spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden said in a statement explaining Obama’s decision. The aid is “non-lethal,” she noted.

Under Obama’s determination, U.S. assistance may also include “chemical weapons-related personal protective equipment to international organizations, including the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, for the conduct of their operations” under the Russia-U.S. plan.

It may also encompass “chemical weapons-related life-saving assistance for organizations implementing Department of State or U.S. Agency for International Development programs to strengthen local Syrian health care providers’ ability to prepare for and respond to any use of chemical weapons.”

Hayden said Obama's decision "is part of longstanding and ongoing efforts to provide life-saving chemical weapons-related assistance to people in need in Syria."

How longstanding?

"For approximately one year, the U.S. Government has been working with (Syrian) first responders to develop contingency plans to help them to respond and protect themselves in the even of chemical weapons attacks," a senior administration official familiar with the planning told Yahoo News.

"We have also provided supplies and equipment for those responding to chemical weapons attacks and supplies to treat those affected by the attack,” said the official, who requested anonymity.

What kind of aid?

Obama to send rebels anti-chemical-arms gear

The decision seems to indicate the U.S. is worried about Assad, but an official says it's part of an ongoing effort.
Aid is 'nonlethal'

WASHINGTON (AP) — The deadly attack at the Washington Navy Yard was carried out by one of the military's own: a defense contract employee and former Navy reservist who used a valid pass to get onto the installation and started firing inside a building, killing 12 people before he was slain in a gun battle with police.

The motive for the mass shooting — the deadliest on a military installation in the U.S. since the tragedy at Fort Hood, Texas, in 2009 — was a mystery, investigators said. But a profile of the lone gunman, a 34-year-old Aaron Alexis, was coming into focus. He was described as a Buddhist who had also had flares of rage, complained about the Navy and being a victim of discrimination and had several run-ins with law enforcement, including two shootings.

Monday's onslaught at a single building at the highly secure Navy Yard unfolded about 8:20 a.m. in the heart of the nation's capital, less than four miles from the White House and two miles from the Capitol.

It put all of Washington on edge. Mayor Vincent Gray said there was no indication it was a terrorist attack, but he added that the possibility had not been ruled out.

"This is a horrific tragedy," Gray said.

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A police boat patrols near the scene of a shooting at the Washington Navy Yard on Monday, Sept. 16, …

Alexis carried three weapons: an AR-15 assault rifle, a shotgun, and a handgun that he took from a police officer at the scene, according to two federal law enforcement officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the investigation. The AR-15 is the same type of rifle used in last year's mass shooting at a Newtown, Conn., elementary school that killed 20 students and six women. The weapon was also used in the shooting at a Colorado movie theater that killed 12 and wounded 70.

For much of the day, authorities said they were looking for a possible second attacker who may have been disguised in an olive-drab military-style uniform. But by late Monday night, they said they were convinced the shooting was the work of a lone gunman, and the lockdown around the area was eased.

"We do now feel comfortable that we have the single and sole person responsible for the loss of life inside the base today," Washington police Chief Cathy Lanier said.

President Barack Obama lamented yet another mass shooting in the U.S. that he said took the lives of American "patriots." He promised to make sure "whoever carried out this cowardly act is held responsible."

The FBI took charge of the investigation.

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People hold their hands to their heads as they are escorted out of the building where a gunman was r …

The attack came four years after Army psychiatrist Maj. Nidal Hasan killed 13 people at Fort Hood in what he said was an effort to save the lives of Muslims overseas. He was convicted last month and sentenced to death.

In addition to those killed at the Navy Yard, eight people were hurt, including three who were shot and wounded, according to the mayor. Those three were a police officer and two female civilians, authorities said. They were all expected to survive.

The dead ranged in age from 46 to 73, according to the mayor. A number of the victims were civilian employees and contractors, rather than active-duty military personnel, the police chief said.

At the time of the rampage, Alexis was an employee with The Experts, a company that was a Defense Department subcontractor on a Navy-Marine Corps computer project, authorities said.

Valerie Parlave, head of the FBI's field office in Washington, said Alexis had access to the Navy Yard as a defense contractor and used a valid pass.

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This booking photo provided by the Fort Worth Police Department shows Aaron Alexis, arrested in Sept …

Alexis had been a full-time Navy reservist from 2007 to early 2011, leaving as a petty officer third class, the Navy said. It did not say why he left. He had been an aviation electrician's mate with a unit in Fort Worth.

A convert to Buddhism who grew up in New York City, Alexis had had run-ins with the law over shooting incidents in 2004 and 2010 in Fort Worth and Seattle and was portrayed in police reports as seething with anger.

The Washington Navy Yard is a sprawling, 41-acre labyrinth of buildings and streets protected by armed guards and metal detectors, and employees have to show their IDs at doors and gates. More than 18,000 people work there.

The rampage took place at Building 197, the headquarters for Naval Sea Systems Command, which buys, builds and maintains ships and submarines. About 3,000 people work at headquarters, many of them civilians.

Witnesses on Monday described a gunman opening fire from a fourth-floor overlook, aiming down on people on the main floor, which includes a glass-walled cafeteria. Others said a gunman fired at them in a third-floor hallway.

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A U.S. Park Police helicopter removes a man in a basket from the Washington Navy Yard Monday, Sept. …

Patricia Ward, a logistics-management specialist, said she was in the cafeteria getting breakfast.

"It was three gunshots straight in a row — pop, pop, pop. Three seconds later, it was pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, so it was like about a total of seven gunshots, and we just started running," Ward said.

Todd Brundidge, an executive assistant with Navy Sea Systems Command, said he and co-workers encountered a gunman in a long hallway on the third floor. The gunman was wearing all blue, he said.

"He just turned and started firing," Brundidge said.

Terrie Durham, an executive assistant with the same agency, said the gunman fired toward her and Brundidge.

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Police work the scene on M Street, SE in Washington near the Washington Navy Yard on Monday, Sept. 1 …

"He aimed high and missed," she said. "He said nothing. As soon as I realized he was shooting, we just said, 'Get out of the building.'"

As emergency vehicles and law enforcement officers flooded the streets, a helicopter hovered, nearby schools were locked down and airplanes at Reagan National Airport were grounded so they would not interfere with law-enforcement choppers.

Security was tightened at other federal buildings. Senate officials shut down their side of the Capitol. The House remained open.

In the confusion, police said around midday that they were searching for two accomplices who may have taken part in the attack — one carrying a handgun and wearing a tan Navy-style uniform and a beret, the other armed with a long gun and wearing an olive-green uniform. Police said it was unclear if the men were members of the military.

But as the day wore, police dropped one person and then the other as suspects. As tensions eased, Navy Yard employees were gradually released from the complex, and children were let out of their locked-down schools.

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Three women embrace near Nationals Park where family members waited to greet loved ones that were at …

Adm. Jonathan Greenert, chief of naval operations, was at the base at the time the shooting began but was moved unharmed to a nearby military installation.

Anxious relatives and friends of those who work at the complex waited to hear from loved ones.

Tech Sgt. David Reyes, who works at Andrews Air Force Base, said he was waiting to pick up his wife, Dina, who was under lockdown in a building next to where the shooting happened. She sent him a text message.

"They are under lockdown because they just don't know," Reyes said. "They have to check every building in there, and they have to check every room and just, of course, a lot of rooms and a lot of buildings."

___

Associated Press writers Jesse Holland, Stacy A. Anderson, Brian Witte and Ben Nuckols in Washington contributed to this report.

Associated Press writers Jesse Holland, Stacy A. Anderson, Brian Witte and Ben Nuckols in Washington contributed to this report.

The suspect, a former Navy reservist and convert to Buddhism, killed 12 people before he was slain by police.
His past run-ins with the law