The gunman who shot and killed four Marines Thursday during two
attacks at military facilities in Chattanooga, Tenn., has been
identified as Muhammad Youssef Abdulazeez, a law enforcement source
confirmed to Fox News.
Abdulazeez, 24, was born in Kuwait, a U.S. official told Fox. It was
not immediately clear if he was a U.S. or Kuwaiti citizen. He was
reported to be from Hixson, Tenn., just across the Tennessee River from
Chattanooga.
The law enforcement source said preliminary reports indicate
Abdulazeez, who also died, was not on the FBI's radar leading up to
Thursday's attacks. A defense official told Fox he was killed by law
enforcement officers and did not commit suicide.
The U.S. National Counterterrorism Center said it has seen nothing so
far to connect Abdulazeez to any terrorist organization. But it noted
that the Islamic State group (ISIS) has been encouraging extremists to
carry out attacks in the U.S.
“We are treating this as an act of domestic terrorism,” said Bill
Killian, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Tennessee. At a news
conference late Thursday, FBI agent Ed Reinhold said there was "no
indication at this point that anybody else was involved."
"Obviously, we're still at the beginning of this investigation,"
Reinhold said. "We will explore any possibility and that includes
whether or not anyone else was involved."
U.S. Attorney Killian added that investigators do not believe that there are any more threats to the general public.
President Obama, speaking from the Oval Office shortly after
returning from a trip to Oklahoma, vowed a thorough and prompt
investigation.
"It is a heartbreaking circumstance for these individuals who have
served our country with great valor to be killed in this fashion," Obama
said.
The gunman first shot up a recruiting center before driving seven
miles to the Navy Operational Support Center and Marine Corps Reserve
Center and killing four Marines before he was shot, authorities said.
Sources told Fox News police chased the gunman from the recruiting
center to the Center. The entire attack last about half-an-hour.
A well-placed source in Chattanooga told Fox News that one of the
Marines who was killed was a "decorated war hero with two Purple
Hearts." The youngest was 19 years old, the source said. Defense
officials also said late Thursday a female sailor was in surgery after
being shot.
Within hours of the bloodshed, law officers with guns drawn swarmed
what was believed to be Abdulazeez's house, and two females were led
away in handcuffs.
A dozen law enforcement vehicles, including a bomb-squad truck and an
open-sided Army green truck carrying armed men, rolled into the Hixson
neighborhood, and police closed off streets and turned away people
trying to reach their homes.
Details of Abdulazeez's life were just beginning to emerge late Thursday. The Chattanooga Times Free Press reported that
he graduated from the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga with a
Bachelor of Science degree in electrical engineering in 2012. Before
that, he graduated from Red Bank High School with a yearbook photo
featuring the quote, “My name causes national security alerts. What does
yours do?”
Photos of the yearbook photo were sent to the newspaper, which also
reported that he was arrested for driving under the influence last April
20.
The New York Times,citing
law enforcement officials, reported Abdulazeez’s father had been
investigated several years ago for possible ties to a foreign terrorist
organization and at one point was on – but later removed from – a terror
watch list.
In a statement, Travis Brickey of the Tennessee Valley Authority,
said the younger Abdulazeez was a student intern "approximately five
years ago."
The paper also reported that Abdulazeez's father, Youssuf
Abdullazeez, was appointed as a "special policeman" for Chattanooga's
Department of Public Works in March 2005.
Residents and students who knew the suspect said he was a quiet kid, but well-liked.
"He was friendly, funny, kind," Kagan Wagner told the Times. "I never would have thought it would be him."
The shootings began at the all-military recruiting center on Old Lee
Highway, where a shot rang out around 10:30 or 10:45 a.m. local time,
followed a few seconds later by more gunfire, said Sgt. 1st Class Robert
Dodge, leader of Army recruiting at the center.
He and his comrades dropped to the ground and barricaded themselves
in a safe place. Dodge estimated there were 30 to 50 shots fired. Doors
and glass were damaged at the neighboring Air Force, Navy and Marine
offices, he said.
Law enforcement officials told recruiters that the gunman stopped his
car in front of the recruiting station, shot at the building and drove
off, said Brian Lepley, a spokesman with the U.S. Army Recruiting
Command in Fort Knox, Kentucky.
The recruiting center sits in a short strip mall, between a cellphone
business and an Italian restaurant, with no apparent special security.
The gunman opened fire next at the Navy Operational Support Center
and Marine Corps Reserve Center Chattanooga. The Navy-Marine center,
situated in an industrial area of the city, is a fenced-off
installation. Its two entrances have unmanned gates and concrete
barriers that require approaching cars to slow down to drive around
them.
Marilyn Hutcheson, who works at Binswanger Glass just across the
street from the center on Amnicola Highway, said she heard a barrage of
gunfire around 11 a.m.
"I couldn't even begin to tell you how many," she said. "It was rapid
fire, like pow pow pow pow pow, so quickly. The next thing I knew,
there were police cars coming from every direction."
She ran inside, and she and other employees and a customer waited it
out with the doors locked. The gunfire continued with occasional bursts
for what she estimated was 20 minutes. Bomb squads, SWAT teams and other
local, state and federal authorities rushed to the scene.
"If it was a grievance or terroristic related, we just don't know," she said.
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