Congress To Examine FBI Handling Of Tennessee Shooter: WASHINGTON, July 19 (Reuters) - U.S. lawmakers will examine possible shortcomings in law enforcement or intelligence in the case of a Tennessee shooting that killed five servicemen, a top Republican said on Sunday, adding that the case may be linked to Islamic State.
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WASHINGTON, July 19 (Reuters) - U.S. lawmakers will examine possible shortcomings in law enforcement or intelligence in the case of a Tennessee shooting that killed five servicemen, a top Republican said on Sunday, adding that the case may be linked to Islamic State.
Representative Mike McCaul, who heads the U.S. House of Representatives homeland security committee, told ABC's "This Week" program the case highlighted growing concern about Internet-based directives from Islamic State leaders in Syria.
Senator Dianne Feinstein, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said the gunman appeared to be a "classic lone wolf," but said it was difficult to know for sure given new encryption applications available to terrorists.
Feinstein said legal counsels at big Internet companies were unwilling to bar those apps and remove other explicit postings about bomb-making techniques unless mandated by law to do so.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is investigating Friday's attack as an act of terrorism, but said it was premature to speculate on the motive of the gunman, Mohammod Youssuf Abdulazeez, a Kuwaiti-born naturalized U.S. citizen.
McCaul said the Chattanooga case was troubling for several reasons, including the fact that Abdulazeez's father had been on a U.S. watchlist, but that case was later closed.
FBI officials were now examining the suspect's computer, his cell phone and his travel to Jordan, McCaul said. "We'll be looking at all those details. This is one (where) we'll be conducting oversight and examining what happened."
McCaul said the U.S. government had counted 200,000 Tweets a day coming from Islamic State and had active investigations under way in all 50 states. But he said Internet calls aimed at activating people in the United States were "very hard to stop."
"This is a very difficult counterterrorism challenge in the United States," McCaul said, urging increased efforts to hit the Islamic State officials who were issuing the cyber commands.
He said the FBI had arrested individuals in 60 separate cases linked to Islamic State over the past year, including an alleged plot scheduled for the U.S. national holiday on July 4.
Representative Ed Royce, who heads the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said lawmakers were also looking at changing federal law to allow Marines and other troops to fire at attackers at U.S. facilities, much as they now can overseas.
Defense Secretary Ash Carter on Friday approved immediate steps to beef up protection of military sites.
The Marine Corps closed all recruiting stations within 40 miles of the incident in Chattanooga, and told recruiters not to wear military uniforms, said Pentagon spokesman Mark Wright.
(Additional reporting by Michael Flaherty)
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By Andrea Shalal
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Lawmakers will examine possible shortcomings in law enforcement or intelligence in the case of a Tennessee shooting that killed five servicemen, a top Republican said on Sunday, adding that the case may be linked to Islamic State.
Representative Mike McCaul, who heads the U.S. House of Representatives homeland security committee, told ABC's "This Week" program the case highlighted growing concern about Internet-based directives from Islamic State leaders in Syria.
Senator Dianne Feinstein, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said the gunman appeared to be a "classic lone wolf," but said it was difficult to know for sure given new encryption applications available to terrorists.
Feinstein said legal counsels at big Internet companies were unwilling to bar those apps and remove other explicit postings about bomb-making techniques unless mandated by law to do so.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is investigating Thursday's attack as an act of terrorism, but said it was premature to speculate on the motive of the gunman, Mohammod Youssuf Abdulazeez, a Kuwaiti-born naturalized U.S. citizen.
McCaul said the Chattanooga case was troubling for several reasons, including the fact that Abdulazeez's father had been on a U.S. watchlist, but that case was later closed.
FBI officials were now examining the suspect's computer, his cell phone and his travel to Jordan, McCaul said. "We'll be looking at all those details. This is one (where) we'll be conducting oversight and examining what happened."
McCaul said the U.S. government had counted 200,000 Tweets a day coming from Islamic State and had active investigations under way in all 50 states. But he said Internet calls aimed at activating people in the United States were "very hard to stop."
"This is a very difficult counterterrorism challenge in the United States," McCaul said, urging increased efforts to hit the Islamic State officials who were issuing the cyber commands.
He said the FBI had arrested individuals in 60 separate cases linked to Islamic State over the past year, including an alleged plot scheduled for the U.S. national holiday on July 4.
Representative Ed Royce, who heads the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said lawmakers were also looking at changing federal law to allow Marines and other troops to fire at attackers at U.S. facilities, much as they now can overseas.
Defense Secretary Ash Carter on Friday approved immediate steps to beef up protection of military sites.
The Marine Corps closed all recruiting stations within 40 miles of the incident in Chattanooga, and told recruiters not to wear military uniforms, said Pentagon spokesman Mark Wright.
(Additional reporting by Michael Flaherty; Editing by Eric Walsh)
- Senator Dianne Feinstein
- Federal Bureau of Investigation
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Alexey Eremenko – October 28, 2014) Moscow will not join the U.S. effort to thwart the Islamic State terrorist group until Russian-American relations improve, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said this weekend.
The big question, however, is whether Russia is in fact in a position to offer any substantial aid to the anti-jihad campaign – and military analysts believe the answer is “yes.”
“Russia can do anything,” said Frants Klintsevich, a Russian lawmaker and Afghan War veteran turned military expert.
“We could solve the issue once and for all if there were only the political will to do so,” Klintsevich told The Moscow Times on Monday.
Independent experts were more reserved, but also said Russia has a lot to contribute to the fight against the Islamic State.
The list runs right up to boots on the ground: not regular troops, but private military companies that Russia is about to legalize, though possibly not in time for them to join the fray in Syria and Iraq.
Kerry’s Checklist
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said last week that Russia had agreed to contribute military equipment, intelligence and military training to the anti-Islamic State effort.
Lavrov then debunked these claims on Russian television, saying that Moscow would only work with the U.S. on the Islamic State within the framework of broad bilateral cooperation, which is currently suspended due to U.S. sanctions slapped on Russia over its meddling in strife-torn Ukraine.
But Kerry’s checklist is still valid on all counts, and could even be expanded, Klintsevich said.
Tracking the New Breed
The Islamic State comprises a new generation of jihadists who emerged after the veterans who cut their teeth in Afghanistan and were championed by Osama bin Laden were weeded out by nonstop conflict, said Georgy Engelgardt, a leading expert on Islamic politics in Russia.
Many of the newcomers hail from Russia’s North Caucasus or the ex-Soviet republics of Central Asia, where Russian security services retain connections and influence.
Russian intelligence could be especially useful for tracking Islamists’ affiliates outside the Middle East, as well as Islamic State veterans retiring to safer places, Engelgardt said.
Russia could also provide some insight into jihadists’ doings in Syria, whose strongman leader Bashar Assad is a longtime client of Moscow, Engelgardt said.
“But that intel is likely to be limited, given that Assad is himself an enemy of the Islamic State,” he said.
Boots on the Ground
While Russian intelligence services may have much to offer the campaign against the Islamic State, the Russian military is unlikely to follow suit.
“Russia will not fight for wars that America started,” a leading Russian foreign affairs analyst said recently at a closed gathering of experts in Harvard.
But instead, Russia could use its own private military companies (PMCs), which it is about to legalize under a bill pending review in the State Duma, another prominent Russian expert said at the same event. Both declined to be identified because the event was closed to media.
Senator Klintsevich, who co-penned the bill, said it would take Russia a few years to produce mercenary squads capable of surviving war zones.
“Getting together a PMC takes time,” Klintsevich said.
Russia’s sole excursion into private warfare failed spectacularly last year, when anti-Assad forces in Syria reported routing a squad of Russian mercenaries.
Surviving squad members told Russian media they were offered a relatively low-risk job guarding power plants and were nonplussed when faced with direct attacks by heavily armed rebels instead.
Existing Forces
Russia has the capability to staff enough PMCs with its own veterans, analysts agreed.
Western PMCs in Iraq and Syria already employ a limited number of Russian military professionals.
Russian troops also acted in an unofficial capacity during the takeover of Crimea and, allegedly, in the war in eastern Ukraine, though Moscow denies the latter. But those were regular troops rather than actual mercenaries.
Moscow also has a powerful fighting force in Chechnya under local strongman Ramzan Kadyrov, a tough-talking veteran of the Chechen war who has repeatedly slammed the Islamic State as apostates.
But Kadyrov’s own veterans of a mountain guerrilla war in Chechnya, despite their fierce reputation, may not necessarily be a match for the Islamic State’s quasi-regular army, Engelgardt said.
At least 600 Russian nationals are fighting for Islamists in Syria, Russian President Vladimir Putin said last year. That includes at least one high-ranking militant leader of Chechen origins.
Gunships, Trainers
Russia can also go on doing what it has been doing for decades in Iraq and Syria: equipping and training governmental forces of both Soviet-era allies, analysts said.
Russia continued to supply arms to Assad during the ongoing civil war in Syria, despite U.S. protests, and was rumored to be training his officers, though it was never confirmed.
Last year, the Pentagon bought 12 Russian Mi-17 helicopters for the Afghan military, with a deal for 30 more under way despite opposition in the U.S. Senate. American commanders said the Afghan army would remain grounded without the Mi-17s, which one officer said was as simple to operate “as a farm tractor.”
The Enemy of My Enemy
Finally and most importantly, the very fact of Russia throwing its weight behind the U.S. could go a long way toward curbing Islamic State’s clout in the region, where it still has many foes, even among Islamists, Engelgardt said.
He compared it to the fate of the Taliban in Afghanistan, who found themselves in global isolation and were easily smashed by the international coalition backed by Russia in 2001.
“While the big powers squabble, it’s just easier for the Islamists to operate,” Engelgardt said.
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CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. — Federal investigators on Friday dug into the background and travels of the 24-year-old gunman who they say killed four Marines in an attack on two military sites here, focusing on a seven-month trip he made last year to Jordan and scouring his electronic trail in search of a motive for the killings.
The crucial, unanswered question was whether Mohammod Youssuf Abdulazeez, a naturalized American citizen who was born in Kuwait, came into contact with, or was inspired by, any Islamist extremist groups, intelligence officials said.
Federal agents flew Mr. Abdulazeez’s computer, cellphone and other electronics to Washington for forensic analysis of his communications. They also worked with local law enforcement following up on 70 leads about his activities, and they asked intelligence services in Jordan and Kuwait about his movements there.
Mr. Abdulazeez, who was killed in a gun battle with the police during Thursday’s attack, was the son of Palestinians from Jordan, and made several trips to Jordan and Kuwait, where he had relatives, officials said, but he spent most of his life in southeastern Tennessee, and graduated from college here with a degree in engineering.
“We are exploring all travel he has done, and we have asked our intelligence partners throughout the world to provide us with any information they may have as to travel and activities,” said Edward W. Reinhold, the agent in charge of the Knoxville office of the F.B.I., which is leading the investigation. “It would be premature to speculate on exactly why the shooter did what he did. However, we are conducting a thorough investigation to determine whether this person acted alone, was inspired or directed.”
Officials said there was no indication so far of any links to terrorist groups, leaving them to wonder how a young man with no known history of violence or radicalism turned up Thursday with several weapons, spraying bullets at Americans in uniform. Some “lone wolf” attacks have been carried out by people who had no direct contact with extremist groups, but they were influenced by messages online, like those from the Islamic State urging Muslims to take up arms and attack American military sites.
“This attack raises several questions about whether he was directed by someone or whether there’s enough propaganda out there to motivate him to do this,” said a senior American intelligence official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the investigation was still underway.
A congressional official who was briefed on the investigation said it was not yet clear whether Mr. Abdulazeez’s computer or communications were encrypted, which would lengthen the time needed to pry clues out of them. Just days before the attack, Mr. Abdulazeez began a blog where he posted about Islam, according to the SITE Intelligence Group, which tracks international terrorist groups. He at one point compared life to a prison and at another point called life “short and bitter.”
New details emerged of the bloody day that shook this city, with officials describing a furious firefight between Mr. Abdulazeez — armed, some federal officials said, with an AK-47 assault rifle — and Chattanooga police officers at the naval reserve center where the four Marines were killed.
Mr. Reinhold of the F.B.I. said the gunman “did have at least two long guns,” meaning rifles or shotguns, “and he did have one handgun that we’re aware of.” He said some of the guns were legal and some may not have been. Mr. Abdulazeez, he said, did not have body armor, but wore a vest with multiple ammunition magazines.
The gunman fired first on an armed services recruiting center in a strip mall here, and then, pursued by Chattanooga police officers, raced in a Ford Mustang convertible to the naval reserve center, a fenced-in campus with buildings and a tree-lined parking lot, and opened fire. “All indications are that he was killed by fire from the Chattanooga police officers,” Mr. Reinhold said.
Fred Fletcher, the Chattanooga police chief, said that as soon as the call went out on the radio, officers swarmed the scene, including members of his command staff who bolted from a meeting, and others who were off-duty at home and not in uniform when they responded.
“It was clear that this gunman had every intent to encounter and murder police officers,” he said. When one officer at the second shooting scene was shot in the ankle — one of three people injured in the battle — the other officers there “put their hands on him, dragged him from the gunfire, and bravely returned fire,” Chief Fletcher said.
William C. Killian, the United States attorney for the Eastern District of Tennessee, said, “We will continue to investigate it as an act of terrorism until the proof shows us otherwise.”
A day after the shootings, Chattanooga mourned. About 600 people attended a memorial service at Olivet Baptist Church for those killed. The speakers, including Gov. Bill Haslam, said the attack would not drive a wedge between members of this diverse city, which has a sizable Muslim population. “The sense of violation that we all feel today cannot be healed individually,” Mayor Andy Berke said. “The pain can only be healed as a community.”
Sailors and Marines in uniform were at the service, some giving the Marine Corps battle call each time the bravery of the Marines was invoked.
“I ask you to use this in some way to heal what is broken in Chattanooga, in the state of Tennessee, in this country,” said Sgt. David Jones, a Marine stationed here.
Before his stay in Jordan last year, Mr. Abdulazeez, who was a naturalized American citizen and made the trip on an American passport, had traveled at least four other times to the country, for two weeks to two months at a time, said federal law enforcement officials, who were not authorized to speak about the investigation. They said he was in Jordan in the last weeks of 2005, in the summer of 2008, the summer of 2010, and the spring of 2013, when he also spent some time in Canada, returning to the United States in May.
A gunman opened fire at a military recruiting office at about 10:45 a.m. Thursday. A police chase ensued, and several people were killed at a naval reserve center about 30 minutes later.
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Officials often look at international travel in terrorism cases because training in terrorist camps in Pakistan or Afghanistan has been seen as a crucial step in developing a plot. But a federal official said there was no indication that Mr. Abdulazeez’s trips were connected with the shootings, which would have required no special training.
The authorities in Jordan said Mr. Abdulazeez traveled there last year to visit a maternal uncle, and the tiny, arid country — though squeezed into a volatile region, bordering Syria, Israel, Iraq and Saudi Arabia — is not considered a training ground for terrorism groups.
Jordan’s monarchy heads the Arab world’s most unflinchingly pro-American government and one of two that have standing peace treaties with Israel. Its security services are pervasive and their clampdowns on dissent played a role in keeping the country stable through the Arab Spring uprisings and the subsequent unrest that has rocked many Arab countries.
While Jordan has little internal militant activity, it is home to several prominent Qaeda-linked ideologues, and parts of the country are bastions of ultraconservative Islam. Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who led Al Qaeda in Iraq before being killed in an American airstrike in 2006, hailed from the town of Zarqa, from which hundreds of young men have left more recently to join jihadist factions in Syria and Iraq.
The official Kuwait News Agency also reported Friday that Mr. Abdulazeez visited there in 2010 for a few weeks before heading to Jordan.
Born in Kuwait in 1990, Mr. Abdulazeez became an American citizen in 2003 through the naturalization of his mother, federal officials said; his father was also naturalized. Because he was a minor, he did not have to apply separately for citizenship. A divorce complaint filed by his mother in 2009 and then withdrawn, said the parents were from “the State of Palestine.”
Counterterrorism officials had not been investigating Mr. Abdulazeez before Thursday’s shootings. His father had been investigated about seven years ago, officials said, for giving money to an organization that apparently had ties to Hamas, the Islamic militant group in Gaza that the United States and other Western nations consider a terrorist organization. The investigation did not result in charges. But the father was placed on a watch list for a while. A similar investigation was conducted in the 1990s and it, too, did not lead to charges.
Representative Michael McCaul, Republican of Texas, the chairman of the Homeland Security Committee, said the watch list had for a time prevented the elder Mr. Abdulazeez from flying. “I believe there was a preliminary investigation, but there was no derogatory information, and he was taken off the list,” he said.
In fact, father and son were able to travel together to Jordan in recent years, a law enforcement official said. It was not clear whether the younger Mr. Abdulazeez went to Jordan alone last year.
Mr. Abdulazeez’s family had faced difficulties in recent years. His father filed for bankruptcy protection in 2002, and his mother, Rasmia I. Abdulazeez, filed for divorce seven years later, court records show. In the divorce complaint, which was withdrawn within a month, a lawyer for Mrs. Abdulazeez said that her husband, Youssuf S. Abdulazeez, had “repeatedly beaten” her and had “on occasion” abused the children by “striking and berating them without provocation or justification.”
The complaint also accused Mr. Abdulazeez of sexual and verbal abuse, and of declaring his intentions “to take a second wife, as permitted under certain circumstances under Islamic law.”
The lawyer who filed the complaint, John R. Meldorf III, did not respond to a request for comment. Court records did not list a lawyer for Mr. Abdulazeez.
Mr. Abdulazeez graduated in 2012 from the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga with a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering. In college, he worked as an intern for the Tennessee Valley Authority.
In 2013, he worked briefly at a nuclear power plant near Cleveland, where he was dismissed after just 10 days.
FirstEnergy Corporation said that Mr. Abdulazeez had been “conditionally employed” at its Perry Nuclear Power Plant, near Lake Erie, in May 2013 before officials “determined that he did not meet minimum requirements for ongoing employment.” The company said that Mr. Abdulazeez had “never entered the secured area of the plant” and that he had access only to an administrative building.
A company spokesman, Todd M. Schneider, on Friday evening refused to elaborate about what specifically had prompted FirstEnergy to dismiss Mr. Abdulazeez.
The only run-in Mr. Abdulazeez had with the law in the Chattanooga area appears to have been an April 20 arrest on a charge of driving while intoxicated; he posted a $2,000 bond.
According to a police affidavit, officers spotted him weaving through downtown Chattanooga after 2 a.m., in a gray 2001 Toyota Camry, and when they pulled him over, they smelled alcohol and marijuana, and he failed a sobriety test. They said his eyes were bloodshot, his speech was slurred, he was “unsteady on his feet,” and he had “irritated nostrils” and white powder under his nose, which Mr. Abdulazeez said came from snorting crushed caffeine pills. He was scheduled to appear in court on July 30.
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By Sky News US Team
Federal investigators are looking into whether the Chattanooga gunman made several trips to the Middle East.
Muhammad Youssef Abdulazeez, who authorities say killed four US Marines in shootings at two military sites in Tennessee, spent nearly seven months in Jordan in 2014, the Wall Street Journal reported.
Edward Reinhold, special agent in charge of the FBI's Knoxville division, confirmed on Friday that authorities are looking at Abdulazeez's travel history to the region.
He declined to comment further, citing the ongoing investigation.
Counterterrorism investigators are trying to figure out why the 24-year-old Kuwait-born man attacked two military facilities in Chattanooga.
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Abdulazeez had not been on the radar of federal authorities until the shootings on Thursday.
On Friday, Mr Reinhold said authorities would continue to investigate the attack as an act of terrorism until evidence suggested otherwise.
He emphasised, however, that the shootings had not officially been classified as a terrorist act.
Bill Killian, the US Attorney for the Eastern District of Tennessee, said authorities "would leave no stone unturned" to uncover a motive behind the "heinous and cowardly act".
Abdulazeez was armed with three weapons, including two long guns and a handgun, when he opened fire on the two military facilities, authorities said.
He was killed during an exchange of gunfire with Chattanooga police officers, Mr Reinhold said.
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Meanwhile, the Marine Corps on Friday identified the four victims killed in the shooting.
They were Gunnery Sgt Thomas Sullivan, Staff Sgt David Wyatt, Sgt Carson Holmquist and L/Cpl Squire Wells.
Their deaths took place at a time when US law enforcement agencies are increasingly concerned about the threat of "lone wolf" terrorist attacks.
The SITE Intelligence Group, which tracks extremist groups, said that Abdulazeez blogged days before the attack that "life is short and bitter".
He added Muslims should not miss an opportunity to "submit to Allah".
Abdulazeez attended high school in a Chattanooga suburb and graduated from the University of Tennessee with an engineering degree.
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- A photo of the Naval Reserve Center. Pic: Facebook
- Gallery: Four Marines And Gunman Die In Chattanooga AmbushFour Marines and a gunman have been killed in an "incomprehensible" attack on two military facilities in southern Tennessee
- The suspect in the Chattanooga attack has been named by US officials as 24-year-old Muhammad Youssef Abdulazez. Pic: Chattanooga Times Free Press
- The attacker targeted a naval recruiting office before heading to a naval centre across town where he killed four Marines before he himself died. Pic: April Grimmett
- Chattanooga Mayor Andy Berke told a news conference the attack was "incomprehensible" and a "nightmare"
- A photo of the Naval Reserve Center. Pic: Facebook
- Gallery: Four Marines And Gunman Die In Chattanooga AmbushFour Marines and a gunman have been killed in an "incomprehensible" attack on two military facilities in southern Tennessee
During his time at the Red Bank High School, he was a popular student, a school friend said.
"He was very outgoing," said Hussnain Javid, a 21-year-old who graduated a few years after Abdulazeez.
"Everyone knew of him."
Authorities say Abdulazeez stopped his silver Mustang convertible outside a naval recruitment office and began spraying the building with bullets.
He then drove across town to the Naval Reserve Center and shot dead four Marines before he was killed.
Three people were also injured, including a US Navy sailor said to have been seriously wounded, and a police officer shot in the ankle.
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Chattanooga Police Chief Fred Fletcher praised the "heroic" actions of his officers, who he said pulled their wounded comrade to safety while exchanging gunfire with the shooter.
In response to the attacks, the US Army's top officer on Friday said the military would review security protocols at recruiting centres.
General Ray Odierno told reporters it was too early to say whether the facilities should have armed security guards or other increased protections.
He stopped short of committing to arming military personnel at the recruiting centres, saying it could cause more problems than it might solve.
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Abdulazeez was the third Jordanian-Palestinian to attack US military personnel in six years
Mohammed Youssuf Abdulazeez, 24, who Thursday, July 16, murdered four US Marines in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and wounded three people, was the third Muslim of Jordanian-Palestinian descent to perpetrate a massacre of American military or intelligence personnel in six years
debkafile’s intelligence and counter-terrorist experts point out that these acts of terror were the price that US army and intelligence agencies paid for relying on Jordan’s General Intelligence Directorate (Dairat al-Mukhabarat al-Amman) as a source of penetration agents for fighting Al Qaeda, the Islamic State and other radical Islamist organizations.
US investigators reported Saturday that Abdulazeez had visited Jordan four times in the last 10 years, and during one of those visits traveled to Yemen. There is no chance that the killer - a naturalized American citizen whose real name may be Mohammed Youssuf Said – could have traveled to Yemen on a Jordanian passport “under the radar” of Jordanian intelligence, which may also have succeeded in recruiting him. And there is no way that Jordan’s GID would not have tipped off US intelligence and counter-terrorist authorities.
debkafile’s intelligence and counter-terrorist experts point out that these acts of terror were the price that US army and intelligence agencies paid for relying on Jordan’s General Intelligence Directorate (Dairat al-Mukhabarat al-Amman) as a source of penetration agents for fighting Al Qaeda, the Islamic State and other radical Islamist organizations.
US investigators reported Saturday that Abdulazeez had visited Jordan four times in the last 10 years, and during one of those visits traveled to Yemen. There is no chance that the killer - a naturalized American citizen whose real name may be Mohammed Youssuf Said – could have traveled to Yemen on a Jordanian passport “under the radar” of Jordanian intelligence, which may also have succeeded in recruiting him. And there is no way that Jordan’s GID would not have tipped off US intelligence and counter-terrorist authorities.
It is obvious that US law enforcement agencies, who claim to have found “no evidence that he had any contact with militants or militant groups,” know a lot more about the killer’s background than they admit and are feeding out tidbits slowly.
This goes far to explain the unusual aspects of the Chattanooga attack. Within minutes of the shooting, hundreds of agents of the FBI and other agencies dealing with the war on terror were spread out at the scenes of the crime – the Navy recruiting center and the Navy reserve center 12 km away. On the scene with exceptional speed too was the Tennessee US Attorney who said at once that the attacks were being treated as an “act of domestic terrorism.”
This goes far to explain the unusual aspects of the Chattanooga attack. Within minutes of the shooting, hundreds of agents of the FBI and other agencies dealing with the war on terror were spread out at the scenes of the crime – the Navy recruiting center and the Navy reserve center 12 km away. On the scene with exceptional speed too was the Tennessee US Attorney who said at once that the attacks were being treated as an “act of domestic terrorism.”
But it is hard to understand how a Muslim, who wrote this message on his blog: “Life is short and bitter. And the opportunity to submit to Allah may pass you by “- managed to acquire an arsenal of deadly weapons, including at least two AK-47 automatic rifles and a handgun, which he used on his murderous rampage in Chattanooga. More weapons were found at his home.
It appears likely to debkafile’s intelligence experts that Abdulazeez or Said, whatever his name, exploited a “dead spot” in the cooperation between US and Jordanian intelligence services to coolly and thoroughly prepare his act of terror in Chattanooga. This opportunity and its timing, on the last day of Ramadan, may have been engineered by his handlers, whether a clandestine Islamic State operative in Jordan, or Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula-AQAP in Yemen.
His methods recalled the modus operandi employed by Al Qaeda in 2009, when Humam Khalil al-Balawi, a Jordanian physician, was recruited by the GID for a US Central Intelligence operation, which was to use his medical qualifications to penetrate Ayman Zawahiri’s close circle. Dr. Balawi succeeded in gaining the Al Qaeda leader’s confidence. But Zawahiri also managed to turn him round.
On Dec. 30, 2009, he arrived at the covert US base of Camp Chapman in southeast Afghanistan to deliver his report on the Al Qaeda leader’s plans, which was eagerly was awaited and destined to reach the desk of President Barack Obama.
Instead of handing over his report, the Jordanian doctor detonated the bomb vest strapped around his chest, killing himself and nine of the CIA agents standing around him.
A month earlier, on Nov. 9, 2009, Army psychiatrist Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, with whom the Tennessee killer shared the same Jordanian-Palestinian background, shot dead 13 American soldiers and injured 32 in a sudden attack at the US base of Fort Hood in Texas.
Abdulazeez clearly followed in the footsteps of both these forerunners.
On Dec. 30, 2009, he arrived at the covert US base of Camp Chapman in southeast Afghanistan to deliver his report on the Al Qaeda leader’s plans, which was eagerly was awaited and destined to reach the desk of President Barack Obama.
Instead of handing over his report, the Jordanian doctor detonated the bomb vest strapped around his chest, killing himself and nine of the CIA agents standing around him.
A month earlier, on Nov. 9, 2009, Army psychiatrist Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, with whom the Tennessee killer shared the same Jordanian-Palestinian background, shot dead 13 American soldiers and injured 32 in a sudden attack at the US base of Fort Hood in Texas.
Abdulazeez clearly followed in the footsteps of both these forerunners.
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The suspect, Muhammad Youssef Abdulazeez sent a text to a friend hours before killing five US marines saying: "Whosoever shows enmity to a friend of mine, then I have declared war against him," it has been revealed.
The friend who received the text spoke anonymously to Reuters on Saturday: "I didn’t see it as a hint at the time, but it may have been his way of telling me something," he said.
The quote is a section of the Islamic text Hadith 38 which Abdulazeez sent his friend in a link.
The friend, who has been interviewed by the FBI, said he received the text at 10.00pm the night before the attack but did not see it as a cause for alarm.
For ultraconservative Muslims, the Hadith "is usually understood within the context of love for Islam and hatred for its enemies," David Cook, an associate professor who specializes in Islam at Rice University in Texas, told The Guardian.
The shooter had seemed normal the last time they say each other, his friend told Reuters.
"The signs just weren’t there," he said. "The only thing I can think of is that it was a combination of things – what is happening overseas, his family problems, maybe some of the issues with the less educated people here. I don’t know."
Members of a Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) Evidence Response Team work outside a US Military Recruiting storefront after a shooting in Chattanooga Abdulazeez, a 24-year-old Kuwaiti-born naturalized US citizen, was an engineering graduate from Chattanooga. He was killed by police on Thursday after carrying out a shooting spree at two Tennessee locations.
The shooting is being investigated by the FBI as an act of terrorism however his motive is still unknown.
Abdulazeez was a devout Muslim although had not been considered radical by his friends and family.
He was not in any of the FBI's databases of suspected terrorists and did not have a strong presence online.
In a statement his family said: "The person who committed this horrible crime was not the son we knew and loved.
"For many years, our son suffered from depression. It grieves us beyond belief to know that his pain found its expression in this heinous act of violence."
Melody Kelley, front right, hugs Logan Wallace during a prayer vigil at Redemption Point Church for the victims of the shootingsAbdulazeez returned from a trip to stay with his uncle and grandparents in Jordan in 2014 concerned about the conflicts in the Middle East.
He felt that US-influenced countries were not doing enough to intervene in the Israeli bombings in Gaza and the civil war in Syria, friends have said.
He had previously travelled to several Middle Eastern countries in 2010.
Abdulazeez owned several guns including an AK-74, an AR-15 and a Saiga 12 which he purchased online and a 9mm and .22 caliber handguns.
Ed Reinhold, the special agent in charge of the regional FBI headquarters, said the gunman wore a "load-bearing vest" which allowed him to carry extra ammunition.
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Fifth victim dies in hospital after Chattanooga naval base attack
These are the five US servicemen killed in the Chattanooga shooting
Islamist Tennessee shooter had no known links to terrorism
The five victims have been named as navy servicemen Skip Wells, Thomas Sullivan, David Wyatt, Carson Holmquist and Randall Smith.
Four of the Marines were killed on the day of the attack and Petty Officer Smith became the fifth victim when he passed away from his gunshot wounds to the liver and colon early on Saturday morning.
According to his family, officer Smith saw the shooter and warned people around him but was unable to get away.
Two of the wounded survived the attack. A Marine recruiter was shot in the leg and a Chattanooga police officer, Dennis Pedigo, was shot in the ankle.
Students and others join in prayer across the highway from where a gunman attacked the Armed Forces Career Center in Chattanooga The day after the shooting took place, hundreds attended an interfaith prayer vigil in Olivet Baptist Church in Chattanooga, where Christians and Muslims mourned the victims' deaths.
In response to the shootings, some governors have taken steps to increase security of National Guard recruiters and military facilities in their states.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott has ordered for National Guard personnel to be armed at military facilities throughout the state.
"Arming the National Guard at these bases will not only serve as a deterrent to anyone wishing to do harm to our service men and women, but will enable them to protect those living and working on the base," Governor Abbott said in a statement.
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The family of Mohammod Abdulazeez, the alleged gunman in shootings at two military facilities in Chattanooga, Tennessee, says he "suffered from depression," which "found its expression in this heinous act of violence," according to a statement released tonight by a family representative.
The Abdulazeez family offered sympathies, condolences and prayers to the families and friends of the victims of the shooting Thursday at two separate facilities in which five service members were killed.
"There are no words to describe our shock, horror, and grief," the statement said. "The person who committed this horrible crime was not the son we knew and loved. For many years, our son suffered from depression. It grieves us beyond belief to know that his pain found its expression in this heinous act of violence."
The family has been cooperating with law enforcement, and will continue to do so, the statement said.
"Having said this, now is the time to reflect on the victims and their families, and we feel it would be inappropriate to say anything more other than that we are truly sorry for their loss," the statement said.
Meanwhile, a source close to Abdulazeez’s family tells ABC News the alleged gunman’s parents are devastated by the shooting.
According to the source close to the family, the suspect suffered from depression and self-medicated with drugs and alcohol and was also on multiple medications for depression.
The source says the family believes the events on July 16 had nothing to do with radicalization--instead, could have been triggered by Abdulazeez’s recent DUI, which caused a lot of pain and embarrassment for both the suspect and his family.
The source says the suspect had several friends and saw no change in character after his recent trip to Jordan.
Abdulazeez had no known ties to radical Islamic groups, according to the source close to the family.
Investigators looking into Abdulazeez's motivation have as of yet found no evidence he was "either inspired, directed, or assisted by individuals associated with an identified designated foreign terrorist organization," and his motivation "remains unknown," according to a bulletin sent to law enforcement agencies, sources tell ABC News.
The Joint Intelligence Bulletin, sent by the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI to 18,000 law enforcement agencies in the U.S. regarding the shootings Thursday, says "the FBI investigation into his activities while overseas and the nature and extent of his affiliation with [foreign terrorist organizations] is ongoing."
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A gunman attacked two military facilities Thursday in Tennessee, killing four Marines and wounding a sailor who died two days later, officials said. The suspect also is dead.
Here is a look at other recent attacks on military facilities in the U.S.:
— June 17, 2015: Guards shot and killed an armed man after he crashed his SUV and emerged holding a rifle while apparently trying to break into the Little Rock Air Force Base in Arkansas.
— Jan. 6, 2015: At Fort Bliss, Texas, an Army veteran and former clerk at the veterans' clinic there shot and killed a psychologist, then committed suicide.
— Nov. 13, 2014: Two Navy civilian police officers were wounded while confronting a knife-wielding man at the submarine base in Groton, Connecticut. The suspect was taken into custody.
— April 2, 2014: At Fort Hood, Texas, three soldiers died and 16 others were wounded in a shooting rampage by another soldier, Army Spc. Ivan A. Lopez, who then killed himself.
— March 24, 2014: A civilian truck driver, Jeffrey Tyrone Savage, took a gun from a petty officer on watch aboard a destroyer at Naval Station Norfolk in Virginia, and killed a sailor before being shot by Navy security forces.
— Sept. 16, 2013: Aaron Alexis, a mentally disturbed civilian contractor, shot 12 people to death at the Washington Navy Yard before he was killed in a police shootout.
— Nov. 5, 2009: Fort Hood Army Base, Texas: Army Maj. Nidal Malik Nadal Hasan, 39, was convicted in August 2013 for killing 13 people and wounding more than 30.
— June 1, 2009: Private William Long was killed and Private Quinton Ezeagwula was wounded when Abdulhakim Muhammad opened fire on the soldiers as they entered an Army-Navy recruiting station in Little Rock, Arkansas.
ISIS Advancements: April 2013 - June 2015 2:10
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AKCAKALE, Turkey — Some penniless parents who fled war-ravaged Syria are now so desperate to survive that they've changed their minds about ISIS — and are even happy that their kids have returned to fight for the militants.
While ISIS is all about creating an Islamic state, the group's appeal often can come down to a question of cash.
When Lufti first arrived in Turkey from Syria in late 2011, he thought his stay there would be short-lived. He was certain rebels would unseat Syria's president and he would be able to return home. But reality — and the struggle to support his wife and five kids — soon set in.
Two of his sons, Mustafa and Ahmad, quit school to find work. When it became clear the money he was earning from a workshop and from smuggling cigarettes was not enough, Mustafa decided to go back to Syria to fight.
"I didn't support his decision but I knew that we didn't have a lot of options," said Lufti, who spoke to NBC News on condition only his first name be published.
Mustafa first joined the Free Syrian Army — a rebel group fighting to unseat President Bashar Assad — in March 2014 aged just 18 but soon after switched to ISIS in hopes of better perks, Lufti said.
When 16-year-old Ahmad said he wanted to go to Syria too, Lufti hatched a plan to cut off his son's long hair in hopes it might keep him home out of embarrassment. But Ahmad was gone by the next morning: His mother had warned him about his father's plot.
Lufti said he understands what drove his children to join ISIS — and it wasn't the religious mores espoused by the Sunni militants.
"Both of them felt that they failed here in Antakya — no work, no school, no future," he said. "They felt they were useless."
What is a Caliphate? 1:24
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Now, he said, they have friends and privileges they never could have imagined — along with their father's understanding.
"After all this time, I think that the boys took the right choice," Lufti said, with pride in his voice. "They get all the respect, the money, food, housing and the power… These are things that I couldn't offer them before in Syria or even in Turkey."
He added: "It's very painful when I think that my children are in a war zone and they could possibly die at any moment but I now understand their situation and I don't want them to come back."
A United Nations report confirmed ISIS has used financial rewards to recruit children. While enlisting or conscripting children under the age of 15 is a war crime, ISIS has aggressively targeted them for recruitment or use in military operations. The militants also don't try to hide their young soldiers: They boast about ISIS "cubs," as they're called, in propaganda videos and photos.
Anwar, a 30-year-old Arabic teacher originally from Raqqa area of Syria, said he's seen several of his relatives join ISIS. He believes bad economic conditions and a lack of options are the main reasons driving the enlistment of youth.
"A lot of families send their children to ISIS as if they send them to school, especially if they're not working — at least the parents don't have to feed and clothe them," Anwar said from the Turkish border town of Akcakale. "These people need money and food and ISIS are now the only one who can offer that."
Experts, though, say the real picture is more complicated.
While money might play a role in the decision to join ISIS, it's certainly not the primary motivation — or why youth stay in the ranks, according to David Phillips, a former senior adviser to the State Department on Iraq.
"The problem revolves around self-worth," said Phillips, who is now director of the program on peace-building and human rights at Columbia University. "Radicalized youth join ISIS not because they're looking for a payout but because they're seeking meaning in their lives. They didn't receive education or opportunity where they came from — they feel becoming a jihadi offers them an opportunity that didn't exist back in the slums or villages from which they originate."
When Marwan told his parents he wanted to join ISIS, his mother Fatima tried convincing him not to go. She was scared for her son and at 16 thought he was too young to fight — but the teen's father, Shadi, did not stop him.
"I told him that if he wants to join them, I can't prevent him," Shadi, 49, told NBC News.
About three months after Marwan left their Syrian village near Tal Abyed for an ISIS training camp, he came home for a visit. Shadi said he noticed his son had "changed a lot": Marwan spoke passionately about his religious lessons, weapons training, Islam and infidels.
"I saw a man in front of me," Shadi said. "Not a spoiled child anymore who was running to the squares and parks to play football."
Marwan brought more than religious fervor home, though — he also had around $250, sugar and rice.
"We were very happy because we needed both — the money and the food," his father said. After seeing Marwan safe and in good health, Fatima gave him her blessing to return to the camp.
On his last day home Marwan asked if he could bring his younger brother, Mahmoud, back to the ISIS training camp with him.
"We did not agree at first because Mahmoud was just 13 years old but when Marwan told us that their leaders told them that they would receive bonuses if they bring anyone from the family or the neighborhood with them to the camp we agreed and allowed Mahmoud to go," Shadi said. "Beside that, Mahmoud looked very happy to go with his brother."
When the boys came home for a visit more than two months later, Mahmoud told his parents he didn't want to ever go back to the ISIS camp — he wanted to stay with his sisters and mother.
"My wife and I talked with both kids and we told them that we don't want to put pressure on them," Shadi said. "If Mahmoud wanted to stay at home, we would support his decision but we also explained to them our living situation and that we need money."
Marwan insisted his brother had been happy at the camp and was afraid "he would face punishment if he returned without his brother," Shadi said, so both boys ended up going back to fight with ISIS in the countryside of Raqqa.
The rest of the family left their home in Syria for Turkey about four weeks ago when Kurdish forces seized the city of Tal Abyad. Since then, the only contact with the boys has been over the phone.
The Mystery of Women and ISIS 2:05
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Marwan was shot in the leg about two weeks ago during a battle with Kurdish forces — and Shadi said he always fears the worst.
"I'm always afraid about them," he told NBC News from the Turkish town of Sanliurfa, about 16 miles from the Syrian border. "Every day when I wake up I am afraid that the phone rings and an ISIS fighter tells me that my son got killed."
Despite the risks at home, Shadi does not want to stay in Turkey.
"Life here is very expensive and we do not have the money," he explained. "We may go back to Syria … and live there in the land of the caliphate with our children."
Cassandra Vinograd reported from London.
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