Tennessee Shooting Suspect Texted Friend An Islamic Verse Hours Before Attack

CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. (Reuters) - Hours before the Tennessee shooting that killed five U.S. servicemen, the suspected gunman texted his close friend a link to a long Islamic verse that included the line: "Whosoever shows enmity to a friend of Mine, then I have declared war against him."

The friend, who requested anonymity, showed the text message to Reuters on Saturday. He said he thought nothing of the message at the time, but now wonders if it was a hint at Thursday's attack in Chattanooga.

The suspect, Mohammod Youssuf Abdulazeez, a 24-year-old Kuwaiti-born naturalized U.S. citizen, was killed in a gunfight with police. The FBI is investigating the shooting as an act of terrorism, but said it was premature to speculate on the gunman's motive.

The rampage has re-ignited concerns about the radicalization of young Muslim men. Abdulazeez's friends said he returned from a trip to Jordan in 2014 concerned about conflicts in the Middle East and the reluctance of the United States and other countries to intervene.

After the trip, he purchased three assault rifles on an online marketplace and used them for target practice, the friends said.

"He expressed that he was upset about (the Middle East). But I can't imagine it drove him to this," said the friend who received the text message.

Authorities said Abdulazeez sprayed gunfire at a joint military recruiting center in a strip mall in Chattanooga, then drove to a Naval Reserve Center about 6 miles (10 km) away, where he killed four Marines before he himself was shot dead.

Three other people were injured, including a U.S. Navy petty officer who died from his wounds on Saturday.

The Navy did not give the name of the sailor, but his step-grandmother identified him as Navy Petty Officer 2nd Class Randall Smith of Paulding, Ohio, who left behind a wife and three young daughters.

"He was an awesome young man," Darlene Proxmire told Reuters. "He loved his wife and children. He loved the Navy."

JORDAN TRIP WAS "EYE-OPENING"

Abdulazeez's friends, who asked not to be identified for fear of a backlash, said he was upset about the 2014 Israeli bombing campaign in Gaza and the civil war in Syria.

"He felt Jordan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia were not doing enough to help, and that they were heavily influenced by the United States," said the friend who received the text message.

Another friend said, "He had always talked about it, but I'd say his level of understanding and awareness really rose after he came back."

Abdulazeez, an engineer, had occasionally smoked marijuana and drank alcohol, and struggled to reconcile that with his faith in Islam, the friends said. At one point, in 2012 or 2013, he received therapy for his drugs and alcohol use, they said.

"He used it to de-stress, when things were difficult at home, or whatever," the first friend said, adding that tensions between Abdulazeez and his Palestinian parents had upset him. His parents nearly got divorced in 2009, according to court records.

Abdulazeez also had problems with local youths that sometimes took on a religious and racial tone, the friend said.

"There were rednecks, ignorant people, who sometimes would cause problems. Mo never fought, but he used to get worked up and yell and stuff," he said. "Afterwards he would calm down, and just say it doesn't matter."

Abdulazeez went to the Middle East in 2010 and visited several countries, according to the friend. He then went to Jordan in 2014 to work for his uncle, and lived with his uncle and his grandparents there, the friend said.

"That trip was eye-opening for him. He learned a lot about the traditions and culture of the Middle East. He said he really enjoyed it and wished to go back some day."

After Abdulazeez returned, he seemed more mellow to his friends, less interested in partying.

"That is part of what drew us closer. He was a guy who wanted to settle down and get his life going. That connected us," the friend said.

GUNS, FAST CARS

Abdulazeez had purchased three guns on armslist.com after returning from Jordan, including an AK-74, an AR-15, and a Saiga 12, his friends said. They said he also owned a 9mm and a .22 caliber hand guns.

Over the past few months, Abdulazeez and his friends practiced shooting in the Prentice Cooper state forest near Chattanooga, sometimes two or three times a week.

"He was always interested in guns, since he was young. He started with a BB gun and paintball, and went on from there. We would go out shooting quite often," said the friend who received the text message.

Abdulazeez also liked driving fast in the hills surrounding Chattanooga.

Two nights before the attack, he and some friends went joyriding in Abdulazeez's rented gray convertible Ford Mustang, passing through the towns of Whitwell, Dayton and Jasper.

"Fast car on a rainy night. We were flying, doing tight turns and drifting," said the friend, adding that they returned home at about 3 o'clock in the morning.

"He seemed totally normal. We made plans to hang out on the weekend," he said.

The night before the attack, just after 10 p.m., the friend received a text from Abdulazeez with this link to a Hadith, or Islamic teaching: http://sunnah.com/nawawi40/3.

For jihadists and ultraconservative Salafist Sunni Muslims, the Hadith "is usually understood within the context of al-wala wa-l-bara (or) love for Islam and hatred for its enemies," said David Cook, an associate professor who specializes in Islam in the department of religion at Rice University in Texas.

It was unusual for Abdulazeez to send such a link, said his friend, who had been asking Abdulazeez for job advice.

"I didn't see it as a hint at the time, but it may have been his way of telling me something," he said. He continued to text Abdulazeez that evening and into Thursday but did not get a reply.

The friend said he has been interviewed by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

He said Abdulazeez had a good paying job and many plans for his life, including possibly starting a computer sales business in Chattanooga. "He wanted to buy a car. He wanted a video console, to make a man cave - every guy's dream."

He said it was difficult to understand how his friend became the suspect in the rampage.

"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."

After the shooting, the friend texted Abdulazeez, asking him if he had heard about the attack. "I guess he knew about it before I did."

(Additional reporting by Frank McGurty in New York, Mark Hosenball in Washington, Brendan O'Brien in Milwaukee and Alex Dobuzinskis in Los Angeles)

Source: The Huffington Post

5th Service Member Dies After Chattanooga Shooting Headshot of Sebastian Murdock Sebastian Murdock

A U.S. Navy sailor has succumbed to injuries sustained in this week's deadly Tennessee rampage, bringing the death toll from the shooting to five. 

The U.S. Navy did not immediately release the name of the sailor. On Friday, a statement by the Navy said a petty officer was undergoing "medical treatment" for gunshot wounds, but it is not immediately clear if Saturday's victim is the same person. The Navy said the sailor died at 2:17 a.m. Saturday. His name will not be released until 24 hours after his family has been contacted.

Navy Sailor Wounded in NOSC Shooting Dies http://t.co/dfKiMHu1wK

— U.S. Navy (@USNavy) July 18, 2015

Authorities say 24-year-old Muhammad Youseff Abdulazeez opened fire at a recruitment center on Thursday before driving to a Marine and Navy reserve, where he killed four Marines and wounded others. 

This is a developing story.  

See more at The Huffington Post

Chattanooga Shooter Probed For Ties To Terrorist Groups

CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. (AP) — Hailey Bureau still recalls the quote her high school classmate Muhammad Youssef Abdulazeez selected for his yearbook photo: "My name causes national security alerts. What does yours do?"

Abdulazeez was apparently borrowing a wisecrack from a well-known American Muslim blogger, and Bureau said it was considered a joke at the time.

"Now it's very morbid," she said, a day after the 24-year-old Kuwait-born Abdulazeez opened fire on two U.S. military sites in Chattanooga in an attack that left four Marines dead and raised the specter of terrorism on American soil.

A picture emerged Friday of Abdulazeez as a likable, outgoing young man who enjoyed a laugh, made the wrestling team and seemed "as Americanized as anyone else," yet was clearly aware of what set him apart at his Chattanooga high school.

What's not clear — to counterterrorism investigators and to neighbors and former classmates — is what set him on the path to violence that ended with him being gunned down by police.

Abdulazeez did not appear to have been on federal authorities' radar before the bloodshed Thursday, officials said. But now counterterrorism investigators are taking a deep look at his online activities and foreign travel, searching for clues to his political contacts or influences.

"It would be premature to speculate on exactly why the shooter did what he did," FBI agent Ed Reinhold said. "However, we are conducting a thorough investigation to determine whether this person acted alone or was inspired or directed."

In the quiet neighborhood in Hixson, Tennessee, where Abdulazeez lived with his parents in a two-story home, residents and former classmates sketched a picture of an utterly ordinary suburban existence. They said they would see him walking along the wide streets or doing yard work. One neighbor recalled Abdulazeez giving him a ride home when he became stranded in a snowstorm.

"It's kind of a general consensus from people that interacted with him that he was just your average citizen there in the neighborhood. There was no reason to suspect anything otherwise," said Ken Smith, a city councilman.

As ordinary as the Abdulazeez family appeared on the outside, court documents allege it was an abusive and turbulent household.

Abdulazeez's mother, Rasmia Ibrahim Abdulazeez, filed a divorce complaint in 2009 accusing her husband, Youssuf Saed Abdulazeez, of beating her repeatedly in front of their children and sexually assaulting her. She also accused him of "striking and berating" the children without provocation.

Weeks later, the couple agreed to reconcile, with the father consenting to go to counseling.

Abdulazeez graduated from Red Bank High School in Chattanooga, where he was on the wrestling team. A fellow Red Bank High graduate, Hussnain Javid, said Abdulazeez was "very outgoing," adding: "Everyone knew of him."

"Obviously something has happened since then," said Sam Plank, who graduated from two years ahead of Abdulazeez but hadn't crossed paths with him since 2006. "He was as Americanized as anyone else. At least that's what it seemed like to me."

Bureau, 25, said she and Abdulazeez often sat next to each other because their last names were close alphabetically. She said she broke down Thursday when she learned Abdulazeez was the gunman, saying, "It's so shocking. I imagine him the way I knew him then, laughing and smiling."

Abdulazeez got an engineering degree from the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga in 2012 and worked as an intern a few years ago at the Tennessee Valley Authority, the federally owned utility that operates power plants and dams across the South.

He was conditionally hired as an engineer at the Perry nuclear power plant near Cleveland and spent 10 days there before he was let go in May 2013 because he failed a background check, said Todd Schneider, a FirstEnergy Corp. spokesman. Schneider would not say why he failed.

"He worked in an administrative building," Schneider said. "He was never allowed in the protected area of the plant near the reactor."

For the last three months, Abdulazeez had been working at Superior Essex Inc., which designs and makes wire and cable products.

In April, he was arrested on a drunken driving charge, and a mugshot showed him with a bushy beard.

Karen Jones, who lived next to the family for 14 years, said she was somewhat surprised last weekend by his appearance when she saw him walking with another man in woods behind the house, where he liked to shoot pellet guns at a red target suspended in a tree.

"He had this big beard, which was not how he used to be," Jones said. She said he was typically clean-shaven.

The women of the family always wore head coverings in accordance with their Muslim faith, Jones said. Javid said he occasionally saw Abdulazeez at the Islamic Society of Greater Chattanooga, but the last time was roughly a year ago.

The official Kuwait News Agency on Friday quoted the Interior Ministry as saying that while Abdulazeez was born in Kuwait, he was of Jordanian origin.

A U.S. official who was not authorized to discuss the case and spoke on condition of anonymity said that Abdulazeez was in Jordan last year for months, and that those travels and anyone he met with are being looked at as part of the terrorism investigation.

In recent months, U.S. counterterrorism authorities have been warning of the danger of attacks by individuals inspired but not necessarily directed by the Islamic State group. Officials have said they have disrupted several such lone-wolf plots.

But the FBI's Reinhold said Friday that so far, there is "no indication he was inspired by or directed by" ISIS or other groups.

The gunman on Thursday sprayed gunfire at a military recruiting center at a strip mall, then shot up a Navy-Marine training center a few miles away.

More details of the attack emerged Friday, with Reinhold saying Abdulazeez was armed with at least one handgun and two long guns — which means a rifle or a shotgun. Some of the weapons were bought legally, some may not have been, Reinhold said.

The gunman was also wearing a vest designed to hold extra ammunition, Reinhold said.

The dead Marines were identified as Gunnery Sgt. Thomas J. Sullivan of Hampden, Massachusetts; Staff Sgt. David A. Wyatt of Burke, North Carolina; Sgt. Carson A. Holmquist of Polk, Wisconsin; and Lance Cpl. Squire K. "Skip" Wells of Cobb County, Georgia. Sullivan, Wyatt and Holmquist had served in Iraq, Afghanistan or both.

An unidentified sailor seriously wounded in the attack remained hospitalized.

Troops inside military recruiting stations are unarmed, largely because of legal restrictions. Gen. Ray Odierno, the Army's chief of staff, said security at such installations will be reviewed in light of the attack.

But he added: "I think we have to be careful about over-arming ourselves." He said there is a danger of "accidental discharges and everything else that goes along with having weapons that are loaded that causes injuries."

On Friday, Gwen Gott added purple ribbons and a flag to a makeshift memorial taking shape outside the recruiting station.

"I love the service. Without them, where would we be as a country?" Gott said.

___

Kunzelman reported from Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Associated Press writers Lucas L. Johnson in Chattanooga; Eric Tucker, Ted Bridis and Lolita C. Baldor in Washington; Travis Loller and Kristin M. Hall in Nashville, Tennessee; Adrian Sainz in Memphis, Tennessee; and Rebecca Reynolds Yonker and Claire Galofaro in Louisville, Kentucky, contributed to this report.

Source: The Huffington Post