An Army officer who led the R.O.T.C. program at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Va., was killed on Thursday when a man stormed a classroom and opened fire in an attack the authorities said was being investigated as an act of terrorism. The gunman, who the authorities said was subdued and killed by students during his attack, had been released from federal prison in 2024, after serving seven years on terrorism-related charges .
The slain army officer was identified by Gov. Abigail Spanberger as Lt. Col. Brandon Shah, who was a professor of military science and a combat veteran. According to his university bio, Colonel Shah, a native of Virginia, had flown Apache helicopters in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere, logging hundreds of hours in combat. He earned two Bronze Stars and two Meritorious Service Medals, along with other awards.
The attack began just before 10:50 a.m., when, according to federal officials, the gunman entered a classroom in Constant Hall shouting “Allahu Akbar,” an Arabic phrase meaning “Allah is greater” that is used in daily Islamic prayers, and opened fire. Members of the R.O.T.C., or Reserve Officer Training Corps, were in the classroom, and federal investigators were working to determine if the gunman had targeted students who are part of the U.S. military, said people familiar with the investigation.
Three people were shot by the gunman, said Dominique Evans, the F.B.I. special agent in charge in Norfolk, who also said that other “brave ROTC members in that room subdued him” before the police and other emergency personnel arrived. The victims included R.O.T.C. members, officials said.
Two of the wounded, including Colonel Shah, were taken to Sentara Norfolk General Hospital. Colonel Shah died at the hospital, and the other patient was in critical condition, the hospital said. The third wounded person took himself to a hospital in Virginia Beach, according to the university police chief, Garrett Shelton, and was later released.
News of Colonel Shah’s killing began circulating on social media on Thursday evening, and Ms. Spanberger, a former C.I.A. officer, was among those mourning the loss.
“I am grateful for his example, deeply saddened by his death, and praying for his family,” she said. “Amid this tragedy, I thank the brave students, first responders, and law enforcement officers who responded quickly to today’s horrific attack.”
Colonel Shah came to Old Dominion in 2022 to lead the university R.O.T.C. battalion, having been an R.O.T.C. member himself at the school 17 years earlier.
In a news conference, Ms. Evans identified the gunman as Mohammad Bailor Jalloh, who had been convicted years ago of having tried to provide material services to the Islamic State.
The shooting took place just an hour and a half before a synagogue was attacked in Michigan, and amid warnings from federal officials and security groups of possible attacks in the United States in retaliation for the airstrikes in Iran over the past two weeks. Ms. Evans said that Mr. Jalloh had made no mention of the U.S.-Israeli war in Iran during the attack.
Chief Shelton said at a news conference that calls to 911 reported that “people were being shot in one of the classrooms.” Students told 13NewsNow of Norfolk that they were taking midterm exams and had seen a commotion or fight before hearing gunfire.
By 10:50 a.m., the officials had determined that the assailant was dead. Chief Shelton said that law enforcement officers found students and faculty hiding as they swept the campus after the shooting.
Mr. Jalloh, a naturalized citizen who was born in Sierra Leone, had been a member of the Virginia Army National Guard. He had decided not to re-enlist, officials said in 2017, “after listening to online lectures by Anwar al-Awlaki,” a leader in Al Qaeda who was assassinated by a U.S. drone strike in 2011.
According to court documents, Mr. Jalloh traveled to Nigeria in 2015 and stayed for two weeks with a member of the Islamic State, at one point trying to join the group in the fighting in Libya.
In Africa, he had made online contact with an Islamic State operative named Abu Saad Sudani, whom he believed was plotting an attack in the United States, federal prosecutors said. To carry out the attack, Mr. Sudani put Mr. Jalloh, who had returned to the United States, in touch with another person, who happened to be an undercover F.B.I. source.
Federal prosecutors said that Mr. Jalloh told the source that he “thinks about conducting an attack all the time,” that he had purchased a handgun and that he planned to “murder U.S. military personnel” in an operation similar to the mass shooting at Fort Hood in Texas in 2009.
In that attack, a U.S. Army major who had also been radicalized by Anwar al-Awlaki, shot and killed 13 people and injured dozens of others on a military base.
In the summer of 2016, Mr. Jalloh sent $500 to someone he was told was an Islamic State operative but who was in fact an F.B.I. employee. A day after he bought an AR-15 rifle from a gun store, Mr. Jalloh was arrested. He pleaded guilty in late 2016 “for attempting to provide material support” to a foreign terrorist organization, and was sentenced to 11 years in prison. He was released in December 2024, according to the U.S. Bureau of Prisons.
Reporting was contributed by Paul Bibeau in Virginia Beach, Va., and by Mark Walker. Research was contributed by Kirsten Noyes.
Campbell Robertson reports for The Times on Delaware, the District of Columbia, Kentucky, Maryland, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia and West Virginia.
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