Excerpts from Reuters looking into the travel of Mohammod Youssuf Abdulazeez, as well as outlining his local Mosque and affiliates. It would be interesting to see a complete timeline of the past 24 months relating to this specific “domestic terrorist”.
Oddly, at least initially, is the sense the foreign aspects of Abdulazeez being less enthusiastically investigated/researched, by media, than say – the Tsarnaev brothers. My gut is telling me the Fathers’ domestic terror link has something to do with the larger Holy Land Foundation case (ie. Muslim Brotherhood in North America) …
(Reuters) U.S. authorities believe the suspect in the fatal shootings of four Marines in Tennessee visited Jordan last year and possibly Yemen as well, two U.S. government sources said on Friday, as investigators looked for any connection to Islamist militants.
Mohammod Youssuf Abdulazeez, 24, who the FBI identified as the shooter, died on Thursday after he killed the Marines and wounded three other people in a rampage at two military facilities in Chattanooga.
Investigators believe Abdulazeez may have family in Jordan, making a visit to that country highly likely, one of the sources close to the probe said. He may have made several stops, and a visit to Yemen has not been ruled out.
A trip to Yemen, long viewed as a training ground for Islamic militants, would raise special concern. Two brothers of Algerian extraction who led an attack on the Paris office of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo in January had visited Yemen in 2011.
U.S. investigators are probing the suspect’s travel history as part of efforts to determine whether he had any contact with militants or militant groups, but they have no firm evidence so far that he did, one source close to the probe told Reuters.
Beyond direct contacts, law enforcement officials have said they are investigating whether Abdulazeez was inspired by Islamic State or similar militant groups. Islamic State had threatened to step up violence in the holy fasting month of Ramadan, which ends on Friday evening.
Islamic State claimed responsibility after a gunman killed 37 tourists in Tunisia in June, the same day as an attack in France and a suicide bombing in Kuwait.
Abdulazeez, who grew up in a Chattanooga suburb and studied engineering at a local university, is believed to have traveled to the Middle East, where his family has roots, between April and November 2014, according to one of the sources, who was not authorized to speak on the record.
[…] The Islamic Society of Greater Chattanooga, where the New York Times said the suspect and his family worshipped, canceled all activities to celebrate Eid, marking the end of Ramadan, the Islamic holy month of fasting, according to its website.
“We condemn this act in the strongest possible terms as one of cowardice and hate,” Bassam Issa, the society’s president, said in a statement.
[…] His father, Youssuf Abdulazeez, who attended Texas A&M University and comes from Nablus, on the West Bank, according to his Facebook page, appears to be a high achiever. He worked since at least 2005 as a soil engineering specialist for Chattanooga city’s public work’s department, according to public records. A 2005 city resolution authorized the father as an unarmed policeman as part of his work.
The suspect appears to have been following in his father’s footsteps, at least in terms of his occupational pursuits. According to a resume believed to have been posted online by Abdulazeez, he attended high school in a Chattanooga suburb and graduated from the University of Tennessee in 2012 with an engineering degree. His work experience includes an internship with the Tennessee Valley Authority, a regional power utility.
Years ago, the father came under investigation by a Joint Terrorism Task Force for possible connections to a militant group, the second source said, but he was cleared of any association with terrorism or wrongdoing. It is possible but not certain that the probe resulted in the father’s name being placed on a terrorist watch list, according to that source.
Abdulazeez, who was raised as a Muslim, was scheduled to appear in court on a charge of driving under the influence in July, according to media reports. (read more)