It is the first indication that abdulazeez’s deadly attacks on two U.S. Military sites last week were motivated by an extremist islamic sense of jihad.
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Last week, the United States was shaken by an appalling Chattanooga shooting rampage.
Crime scene tape surrounds the Chattanooga Armed Forces Career Center on Friday July 17, 2015.
Teen Challenge member, Carol Parker, center, becomes emotional during a memorial service at River Park Saturday, July 18, 2015, in Chattanooga, Tenn., for the victims of the Tennessee shootings. “Through high school and college he did a better job sometimes than others staying with it”, the person said. Upon one of his homecomings, his family held up a sign that read, “We’ve waited 244 days for this moment”.
Before entering the reserve center, Abdulazeez had fired more than 50 rounds into a recruiting office 15 minutes away on the other side of town. The windows, several of which were pocked with bullet holes after the shooting, have been covered with plywood. The writings also indicate that he was displeased with the USA government and its war on terror.
The family representative said Abdulazeez had a number of guns in his house and often used them to go hunting or for target practice with friends at nearby firing ranges. When I Love him, I am his hearing with which he hears, and his sight with which he sees, and his hand with which he strikes, and his foot with which he walks. He appeared excited and seemed carefree then, the friend told ABC News. Abdulazeez also described ISIS as a “stupid group” whose actions were “completely against Islam”, Petty added. And was he propelled to do so by his own demons or at the direction of someone else?
Bilal Sheikh, 25, said he saw his friend at the mosque two weekends ago, as they came to pray and as part of the services to celebrate Ramadan. “He was always the most cheerful guy”.
‘It’s hard to understand how somebody can hurt somebody that’s serving for you, for your freedom, for your safety, ‘ his step-grandmother Darlene Proxmire told WANE television in Indiana.
The FBI’s interest in discovering what Abdulazeez did and who he talked to on his sojourns overseas is entirely reasonable. The family admitted, however, that he was “susceptible to bad influences” and had been sent on his visit to Jordan to get him away from friends who they believed were corrupting him.
Federal Bureau of Investigation spokesman Jason Pack declined comment on whether investigators were pursuing mental health records. Law enforcement officials told ABC New the family has been fully cooperating in the investigation.
Divorce papers filed by his mother alleged that his father beat his wife and five children. She later agreed to reconcile. In May 2013, Abdulazeez, an electrical engineering student, lost a job at a nuclear power plant in Ohio after testing positive for both prescription and illegal drugs.
The Hixson, Tenn. native, who was arrested this past April 20 in connection with drunk driving, was also facing proceedings in criminal court in the incident.
In a statement, Bassam Issa, president of the Islamic Society of Greater Chattanooga, said that in his community, “our hearts are with the families of the fearless Marines who died today and with the police officer and two bystanders who were shot and injured in this cowardly act”.
That arrest was deeply embarrassing for the Chattanooga gunman and sunk him further into depression, according to reports.
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Close friends told Reuters previously that the suspected shooter drank alcohol and smoked marijuana, had received treatment for drug problems, and struggled to reconcile those habits with his Islamic beliefs.
