This April 2015 booking photo released by the Hamilton County Sheriffs Office shows a man identified as Mohammad Youssduf Adbulazeer after being detained for a driving offense. A U.S. official speaking on condition of anonymity identified the gunman in shootings at two Chattanooga military facilities as Muhammad Youssef Abdulazeez, who shares the same age and address as the man in the photo. (Hamilton County Sheriffs Office via AP)
Federal authorities are investigating how a 24-year-old Kuwaiti-born man managed to stay off their radar before allegedly carrying out two horrific shootings at military offices in Chattanooga, Tenn., that claimed the lives of at least four Marines and left three others wounded.
“We are looking at every possible avenue, whether it was terrorism, whether it’s domestic, international, or whether it was
a simple criminal act,” FBI agent Ed Reinhold said of the back-to-back shootings authorities say were carried out by Mohammod Youssuf Abdulazeez, 24, of Hixson, Tenn., who also was killed.
A U.S. official said there was no indication Abdulazeez was on any federal law enforcement watch lists before the attacks in Chattanooga, which took place minutes and miles apart.
The U.S. National Counter-Terrorism Center said it has seen nothing so far to link Abdulazeez to any terrorist organization. But it noted that the Islamic State group has been encouraging extremists to carry out attacks in the U.S., and several such homegrown acts or plots have unfolded in recent months.
Abdulazeez was described by friends as a smart, well-liked, “easygoing” person who was a star wrestler at his high school and graduated from the University of Tennessee Chattanooga with an engineering degree in 2012.
Officials say Abdulazeez first sprayed dozens of bullets into a recruiting center for all branches of the military before apparently driving to a Navy-Marine training center 7 miles away and opening fire. All of the dead were killed at the scene of the second shooting.
In addition to the Marines killed, three people were reported wounded, including a Chattanooga
police officer and a sailor who was said to have been seriously hurt, officials said.
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