A convicted ISIS supporter who spent years in federal prison walked back onto a Virginia university campus, got approved for on-campus status, and nobody in law enforcement bothered to warn the school he was coming, former CIA targeting officer Sarah Adams wrote in an opinion piece for The Daily Wire.
Four months later, Mohamed Bailor Jalloh entered an ROTC classroom at Old Dominion University, shouted “Allahu Akbar,” and opened fire. Lt. Col. Brandon Shah was killed. Two cadets were wounded. Students stopped the attack themselves.
An independent investigation released last month revealed the chilling breakdown: Old Dominion had no idea it had readmitted a man convicted of attempting to provide material support to ISIS. Not a single federal or state law enforcement agency notified the university. His probation officer stayed silent too.
Jalloh’s terror ties were no secret to the federal government. In 2016, the former Virginia Army National Guard soldier pleaded guilty to attempting to provide material support to ISIS in a case involving weapons he believed would be used against U.S. military personnel. A federal judge sentenced him to 11 years in prison followed by five years of supervised release.
He got out early, in December 2024.
Before he even left prison, Jalloh had applied to return to Old Dominion. The university readmitted him in January 2025. Just over a year later, on March 12, 2026, he carried out what investigators now call a targeted terrorist attack against ROTC students and their instructor.
The independent review documented the information gap that made it possible. Jalloh’s supervised release conditions gave his probation officer authority to notify third parties about risks tied to his criminal history. Old Dominion was never notified.
This wasn’t simply a case of the university failing to do its homework. Virginia law actually restricts public universities from asking applicants about criminal history on admissions applications. Schools can only inquire after admission and before enrollment, giving them a narrow window to assess whether someone’s past poses a threat to campus.
That leaves a question with national implications: who owned the risk of a convicted terrorist walking free?
For more than two decades, the United States built a massive counterterrorism apparatus focused on finding threats before they could strike. Intelligence agencies mapped networks. Investigators tracked communications and money. Joint Terrorism Task Forces built cases. Prosecutors secured convictions. Courts handed down sentences.
Jalloh hadn’t vanished from government oversight. He was actively serving supervised release when he applied to Old Dominion, when he was readmitted, when he was approved for on-campus status, and when he walked into that ROTC classroom.
