Apple is invited to help the US Department of Justice

US Secretary of Justice William Barr asked Apple to unlock two closed phones that were used by Saudi military trainee Muhammad al-Shamrani, who had carried out a mass shootout targeting an American base.

Barr accused the company of "not providing any substantial assistance to us," a charge denied by Apple.

The company was involved in a previous dispute with the FBI over a request to open the feature of turning off iPhone phones of terrorism suspects.

The attack, which was carried out by a Saudi Air Force lieutenant, Mohammed Saeed Al-Shamrani, 21, killed three soldiers and wounded eight others inside the American base on December 6 last year.

Bar described the shooting incident inside the Pensacola Naval Air Force Base in the United States as "a terrorist act".

He said at a press conference on Monday: "It is very important for us to know who was communicating with the shooter before his death and about what."

The New York Times said that Apple had provided the FBI with the iCloud network data on the attacker's account on the Internet, but the company refused to open the phone, saying the move would undermine its encryption program.

Apple denied it did not provide assistance with the investigation, and said in a statement, in response to Barr's comments in which he accused the company, that it immediately responded to multiple requests by the FBI in order to obtain information.

A similar conflict erupted in 2016 and the crisis ended with the FBI finding a way to unlock a closed phone for a mass shooter in California without help from Apple.
The expulsion of Saudi military trainees

On Monday, the United States decided to expel 21 Saudi military trainers.

Bar said that the trainees were found in possession of "jihad" material and inappropriate pictures of children, but they were not accused of assisting the shooter.

The US Attorney General added that 17 of the trainees who were expelled from the country were found possessing terrorist materials via the Internet.

Bar added that 15 of these 17 trainees had found inappropriate photos of children.

Bar added that the expelled students have not been charged with any crime in the United States, but they may be prosecuted in their country.

There are over 850 Saudi military trainers in the United States, and their training assignments were suspended after the December attack.

The Pensacola base has long provided aviation training for foreign military forces, and Saudi pilots began training there in 1995, along with other pilots from Italy, Singapore and Germany.

In the wake of last month's attack, the al Qaeda leader said that about 200 international trainers had joined training programs there.

The Pensacola base contains more than 16,000 military personnel and 7,400 civilian personnel, according to data on the base's website.