Gunman’s stay in Jordan focus of U.S. investigation

CHATTANOOGA, TENN. • Investigators pored over the foreign travel records of the gunman whose apparent anti-military rampage left four U.S. Marines dead, saying Friday his trips included Jordan but it remained unclear whether he had any contacts with militants abroad.

The seven-month visit last year to Jordan, a long-standing U.S. ally, raised no red flags at the time with U.S. counterterrorism officials. But it is now is under close scrutiny as authorities attempt to piece together a portrait of the attacker, Mohammad Youssef Abdulazeez, 24.

While no clear motive has been determined for Thursday’s bloodshed, the probe delved into possible ties to Islamist terrorist groups or whether Abdulazeez acted independently in a half-hour spree of violence that ended with his death by apparent police gunfire. Investigators were combing through the gunman’s computer, cellphone and social media contacts.

His time in Jordan expands the international scope of the investigation. The Kuwait-born Abdulazeez had Jordanian citizenship when he arrived in the United States as an infant, officials said, and could still have family ties in Jordan or elsewhere.

But Jordan also has been a pathway for some into neighbouring Syria, where the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant and other militant groups have key footholds.

A high school friend, Levon Miller, added that Abdulazeez travelled abroad once every few years. “He’d take off for a month or two mostly during his college breaks,” Miller said.

Just days before the attacks, Abdulazeez began a blog that included references to life as a “prison” of monotony and superficiality, urging the study of the Qur’an as a path to add meaning. He looked back to the early days of Islam, noting that the contemporaries of the Prophet Muhammad “fought jihad for the sake of Allah.”

But the blog also suggested appeals for wider understandings of Islam. He wrote that Muslims need to “have appreciation of other points of view,” according to the SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors online postings of militant factions.

The postings so far offer some of the only intimate glimpses into Abdulazeez, who played for his high school wrestling team and later studied engineering at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga.

U.S. officials said an initial check of federal terrorism databases found no sign that Abdulazeez was under investigation. A senior U.S. law enforce- ment official confirmed his father was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation several years ago and put on the terrorism watchlist, but was later removed.

Meanwhile, more details emerged into the blitz of violence.

It began when Abdulazeez fired on military recruiting offices from his car, leaving the glass doors peppered with bullet holes while people in nearby stores cowered behind counters and in closets.

He drove off, heading about 11 kilometres to a military reserve unit. A witness said a car rammed the chainlink gate. Minutes later, the gunman began firing at the main building, killing two Marines, before walking to the motor pool area, where two others died.

A Chattanooga police officer and a member of the U.S. military were wounded before Abdulazeez was killed.

FBI Director James Comey recently disclosed authorities had arrested more than 10 people over the past two months as part of a burst of activity by law enforcement officials to prevent attacks timed to the Fourth of July holiday as well as the Muslim observance of Ramadan.

But officials made no direct links to the Chattanooga attacks.

As with many shootings — including last month’s church slaughter in Charleston, S.C. — questions arose on how the attacker obtained the weapon.

FBI agent Ed Reinhold said Abdulazeez had “numerous weapons,” but did not give further details. “We will treat this as a terrorism investigation until it can be determined it was not,” he said.

Abdulazeez’s family came to the United States at the start of the Persian Gulf War in 1991 and he later became a U.S. citizen, according to accounts given by friends and one of his sisters.

He grew up in the Chattanooga area, and attended Red Bank High School. Beneath what appears to be his senior photo in the school’s yearbook is a provocative quote: “My name causes national security alerts. What does yours do?”

My name causes national security alerts