Judicial Watch reports that Ft. Lauderdale Airport shooter Esteban Santiago Converted to Islam, Identified as Aashiq Hammad Years Before Joining Army

The Ft. Lauderdale Airport shooter is a Muslim convert who years before joining the U.S. Army took on an Islamic name (Aashiq Hammad), downloaded terrorist propaganda and recorded Islamic religious music online, according to public records dug up by the investigative news site of an award-winning, California journalist. This is pertinent information that the Obama administration apparently wants to keep quiet, bringing up memories of the Benghazi cover up, in which the president and his cohorts knowingly lied to conceal that Islamic terrorists attacked the U.S. Special Mission in Libya.

Information is slowly trickling out that links the Ft. Lauderdale Airport shooter to radical Islam while the official story from authorities is that the gunman is a mentally ill, Hispanic Army veteran named Esteban Santiago that became unhinged after a tour in Iraq. Only one mainstream media outlet mentions the possibility of Santiago’s “jihadist identity,” burying it in a piece about New York possibly being his initial target. A paragraph deep in the story mentions that investigators recovered Santiago’s computer from a pawn shop and the FBI is examining it to determine whether he created a “jihadist identity for himself using the name Aashiq Hammad…” The rest of the traditional mainstream media coverage promotes the government rhetoric that omits any ties to terrorism even though early on a photo surfaced of Santiago making an ISIS salute while wearing a keffiyeh, a Palestinian Arab scarf.

The public records uncovered in the days after the massacre suggest Santiago (Hammad) is a radical Islamic terrorist that’s seriously committed to Islam. Besides taking on a Muslim name, he recorded three Islamic religious songs, including the Muslim declaration faith (“there is no God but Allah and Muhammad is his messenger”) known as the Shahada. He also posted a thread about downloading propaganda videos from Islamic terrorists on a weapons and explosives forum. The investigative news site that unearthed this disturbing information connected the dots between Santiago, who is of Puerto Rican descent, and Hammad, an identity he created in 2007.

The Miami Herald, however, denies it,

Suggestions of Santiago’s possible connection to Jihadists stem in part from the gunman’s visit to an FBI office in Anchorage two months ago. Authorities said Santiago, who was agitated and incoherent, claimed that he was hearing voices urging him to join ISIS and that the CIA was pressuring him to watch terrorist training videos.

Yet federal agents, who have examined Santiago’s computer, have not uncovered any tangible evidence that Santiago heeded the voices he claimed he heard.

Sources also pointed out that Santiago did not follow the pattern of other ISIS-inspired terrorists by proclaiming support of the terrorist group as other “lone wolf” radicals have done — among them, Omar Mateen, the gunman who killed 49 people at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando last year.

Despite Santiago’s rambling statement to the FBI in November, he was not placed on any federal “no-fly” lists, and following his brief stint in a psychiatric facility, his gun, which had been taken away after the FBI visit, was returned to him.

Either way, Santiago/Hammad killed five and shot six others. Dozens more were injured during the airport evacuation.