Four US marines were killed on Thursday in attacks on two facilities in Tennessee.

Mohammad Youssuf Abdulazeez, 24

Four US marines were killed on Thursday in attacks on two facilities in Tennessee.


 The gunman, who was also killed, was identified as 24-year-old Mohammad Youssef Abdulazeez.

An FBI statement said: “The FBI’s Knoxville Field Office, along with the Chattanooga Police Department and other law enforcement partners, are working jointly to investigate today’s shootings at a military recruitment center and a reserve center in Chattanooga, Tennessee in which four individuals were killed and three injured.

“The shooter, Mohammad Youssuf Abdulazeez, 24, is also deceased.”

An unnamed official told the Associated Press Abdulazeez was from Hixton, Tennessee, a few miles from Chattanooga. The official said he was believed to have been born in Kuwait. It was unclear whether he was a US or Kuwaiti citizen.
A short time later, reports were made of a second shooting at a naval reserve center seven miles away, where the suspect left his car and entered via a gate.



The four victims and the gunman were all killed at this location.

Three injured people – identified locally as a female Navy sailor, a marine and a male police officer – were taken to Erlanger hospital.

Speaking late on Thursday night, Tennessee Senator Bob Corker said the sailor was in a serious condition, and described her as “fighting for [her] life”. He said the police officer’s injuries were “not too serious”.

Their names – and those of the four marines killed – have not yet been released.

Corker said those inside the naval facility were not armed, a decision he said had been taken by the Pentagon. The recruiting center on Lee Highway had “absolutely no security”, he said.

In the hours after the attacks, law enforcement officials swooped on Hixson, a suburb in the north of Chattanooga, where Abdulazeez had lived. Two women were taken away from a property in handcuffs, although Reinhold said this was common practice “for the safety of the officers” and no one was in custody.

Mary Winter, president of the local Colonial Shores Neighborhood Association, said she had known Abdulazeez and his family for more than a decade. “We’re all shocked and saddened,” Winter said. “He never caused any trouble. We can’t believe that this happened.”

Abdulazeez was arrested in Chattanooga in April this year for a traffic offence, but was otherwise thought not to have been in trouble with police.

He is believed to have been born in Kuwait, but it is unclear whether he was a US or Kuwaiti citizen.

The SITE Intelligence Group, which tracks extremist groups, said that Abdulazeez had blogged on Monday that “life is short and bitter” and Muslims should not miss an opportunity to “submit to Allah”. The the blog postings have not been verified.

The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga said Abdulazeez had been a student there, graduating in 2012 with a degree in electrical engineering.

In his Red Bank high school year book, according to the Chattanooga Times Free Press, a photo of Abdulazeez was accompanied by a quote reading: “My name causes national security alerts. What does yours do?”

Hussnain Javid, who attended the same high school in a different year group to Abdulazeez, said the suspected gunman had been on the school wrestling team and had been “very outgoing”.

Security was being stepped up at some federal facilities, Jeh Johnson, secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, said in a statement. But officials in Tennessee stressed there were no safety concerns for the general public, and the suspect was thought to have acted alone.

In a late-night briefing on Thursday, Ed Reinhold, FBI special agent in charge, said the gunman had been in possession of several weapons.

But he said that at this stage of the investigation, officials had “no idea” of the suspect’s motivation: “At this point, we don’t have anything that directly ties him to international terrorist organisations.”

Reinhold said there were three active crime scenes – including the Armed Forces career center, the site of the first attack, at which the gunman fired several bullets without leaving his car, a silver open-top Ford Mustang.

The shooting began around 10.45am at a strip mall on the Lee Highway in Chattanooga. A man in a car stopped in front of the recruiting center, shot at the building and drove off, said Brian Lepley, a spokesman with the US army recruiting command in Fort Knox, Kentucky.

Images from the scene showed bullet holes peppering the door and windows of the center. Nobody was killed in this initial attack.

FBI is investigating gunman's motive for shooting of four US marines
Officials say suspected gunman Mohammed Youssef Abdulazeez – who also died in the attack – was acting alone and had no known links to terrorist groups