FBI Is Investigating Chattanooga Shooting as Act of Terrorism

By Kenrya Rankin Jul 17, 2015

On July 16, 2015, Mohammad Youssuf Abdulazeez, 24, shot and killed four U.S. Marines and wounded three other people when he opened fire at a Chattanooga military recruiting center and attempted to continue his rampage at the Navy Operational Support Center. He was killed during a shootout with the police. Today, Abdulazeez’s motive is still unclear, but the FBI is now investigating it as terrorism.

“We will treat this as a terrorism investigation until it can be determined that it is not,” FBI Special Agent Edward Reinhold told CNN. In a press conference last night, Reinhold said, “At this point, we don’t have anything that directly ties him to an international terrorist organization.”

Abdulazeez was a naturalized U.S. citizen who worked at a wire and cable manufacturing firm in Franklin, Tennessee. He was born in Kuwait, according to that country’s Interior Ministry. While Kuwait officials said he was a citizen of Jordan, Jordanian officials say he was actually Palestinian but had Jordanian travel documents and family who lived there. Friends say he was a devout Muslim and U.S. officials say he was not included in any U.S. databases of suspected terrorists.