FBI probe on as gunman kills four US Marines

A 24-year-old gunman, identified by the FBI as Kuwaiti-born Mohammad Youssef Abdulazeez, killed four Marines at a US military facility in Chattanooga, Tennessee on Thursday, setting off a terrorism investigation for possible links to Islamist terrorist groups. Abdulazeez, who moved with his parents to the US as an infant and became a naturalised American citizen, was killed by police after he went on a shooting spree at two military sites that also injured three other persons, including a police officer. 

US authorities said the attacks were being treated as an act of domestic terrorism, with the FBI leading a national security investigation.While the law enforcement authorities said the motive behind the shootings was still to be established, louisiana’s Indian-American Governor and Republican presidential hopeful Bobby Jindal viewed it as part of the challenge thrown at America by “radical Islam”.

“This shooting underscores the grave reality of the threat posed to us by radical Islamic terrorism every single day,” Jindal said in a statement, urging the authorities to “stop at nothing to hunt down and kill these evildoers abroad before more of them come here to kill our people”. The Islamic Society of Greater Chattanooga condemned the shooting and said in a statement: “We condemn this act in the strongest possible terms as one of cowardice and hate.” 

Abdulazeez, who was described by schoolmates and neighbours as someone who was polite, smart and courteous, went to high school and college in Chattanooga and received a degree in electrical engineering in 2012 from University of Tennessee. One neighbour saw him as “an all-American boy”.  The Chattanooga Times Free Press, however, reported that Abdulazeez had written on his graduation yearbook page: “My name causes national security alerts. What does yours doIJ” Save for an arrest last April on a drunken-driving charge, Abdulazeez had not been on the radar of law enforcement agencies. His father, however, had been investigated some years ago for giving money to an organization with possible ties to terrorists, but the probe did not lead to any framing of charges. 

After the Thursday rampage, SITE Intelligence Group that tracks terror groups said Abdulazeez had maintained a blog in which he had posted on July 13 that “life is short and bitter” and that Muslims should not miss “the opportunity to submit to Allah”.