Mohammad abdulazeez biography

The shootings happened at separate military reserve centers on Lee Highway and Amnicola Highway. Hamilton County Jail via Chattanoogan. His family is Jordanian. He came to the United States in with his parents. Abdulazeez visited Jordan for about seven months last year, according to the New York Times. He lived in Hixson, Tennessee, which is a community in Chattanooga, in a middle-class Muslim family.

He was arrested on April 21, for driving under the influence in Hamilton County, Tennessee, according to the Chattanoogan. Police have not yet released a motive for why the gunman targeted the two military facilities and military personnel. Authorities said he did not work at the military centers. An ISIS-affiliated account sent out this tweet.

The FBI is now trying to determine if he has any ties to terror groups, if he was inspired by organizations like ISIS and if he had any accomplices. But federal authorities said at a press conference that there is no indication yet that the attack was ISIS-inspired. ISIS often uses social media to recruit supporters and to distribute its propaganda videos, including disturbing executions.

They also have told their followers to carry out attacks in their name across the world, including in the United States. The terror organization had called for an increase in terror attacks at the end of Ramadan. The holiday comes to a close on Friday. Muhammad Youssef Abdulazeez at his college graduation. Aziz was a member of the Fruit of Islam , the security arm of the Nation of Islam ; though he later converted to Sunni Islam under the leadership of Warith Deen Mohammed.

Butler changed his name to Muhammad Abdul Aziz while serving his prison sentence. In the days preceding the release of Who Killed Malcolm X? On February 11, , Vance met Aziz's attorney David Shanies and representatives of the Innocence Project with plans to re-investigate the case. After having spent 20 years in prison and nearly 36 years on parole, on November 18, , Aziz was exonerated and his murder conviction overturned, capping off a month-long investigation.

Mohammad abdulazeez biography

Contents move to sidebar hide. Article Talk. Read Edit View history. Tools Tools. Download as PDF Printable version. In other projects. A man with that same name graduated from the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga in with a degree in engineering. Abdulazeez, who was killed by police during the shootings, is from Hixson, Tennessee.

According to the Times Free Press :. A single shooter, described by witnesses as a white man driving a silver Ford Mustang convertible, began firing shots at am at the Lee Highway recruiting center, then led police on a chase to the Amnicola Highway location, where further shots were fired. All of them were shot at the U. Navy Reserve center, one inside a building and the other four at a nearby motor pool area.

The victims all attempted to distract the gunman, returned fire, and assisted people in climbing a fence to safety. Some of the victims died while returning fire at Abdulazeez, providing cover for a larger group of potential victims who were escaping over a fence. They were identified as: [ 16 ] [ 17 ]. In addition, two other people were wounded.

Muhammad Youssef Abdulazeez [ a ] September 5, — July 16, , a resident of Hixson, Tennessee , was identified as the gunman. Abdulazeez, a naturalized US citizen , was born in Kuwait on September 5, , [ 1 ] [ 28 ] [ 29 ] [ 30 ] [ 31 ] to Palestinian-Jordanian parents. Abdulazeez migrated to the US with his family in [ 33 ] and became a US citizen in The father was questioned while on a trip abroad but was eventually removed from the watchlist.

He was not charged with any crime and the information gained in that investigation revealed nothing about his son. Abdulazeez graduated from Red Bank High School. Abdulazeez frequented a gun range with his co-workers. Abdulazeez had drug and alcohol problems , and his family tried to place him in a rehabilitation program. The New York Times reported that limits on the family's health insurance coverage "thwarted their plan to have him go into rehab.

According to a family representative, Abdulazeez was abusing sleeping pills , opioids , painkillers , and marijuana along with alcohol. He had also been thousands of dollars in debt and was planning to file for bankruptcy. Abdulazeez did not attract the attention of the FBI before the shootings. His first trip was in and the last trip was between April and November , when Abdulazeez visited a maternal uncle.

This last visit was arranged by Abdulazeez's family, who wanted him to get away from friends they believed were bad influences on him. Abdulazeez also traveled to Kuwait in Accounts on the length of Abdulazeez's stay with his uncle vary, ranging from two to seven months. Abdulazeez's sole known previous contact with law enforcement was an April 20, arrest for driving under the influence of alcohol DUI.

After his visit to Jordan, Abdulazeez told friends that Jordan, Qatar , and Saudi Arabia ought to have sent more help to Hamas during the Israel—Gaza conflict. In the months before the shooting, Abdulazeez regularly attended Friday prayers at a mosque. In them, he wrote about having suicidal thoughts after losing his job due to his drug use and his desire to "becom[e] a martyr".

None of the writings laid out plans for an attack or spelled out a motive, however. On July 13, he wrote long diary entries, describing life as a kind of prison and warning, "Don't be fooled by your desires, this life is short and bitter and the opportunity to submit to Allah may pass you by. The truth, he wrote, is that "[e]veryone one of them [ sic ] fought jihad for the sake of Allah.

Everyone one of them [ sic ] had to make sacrifices in their lives. An official participating in the investigation told The New York Times there was no evidence that Abdulazeez was in contact with any social media recruiters working for ISIL, explaining, "This case appears to be much more like the old model, where he was interested in radical Islam and sought to learn more about it online by looking at videos and readings.

The shooting was investigated by the FBI as a jihad case from the outset. Comey said, "We're still trying to make sure we understand Abdulazeez, his motivations and associations, in a really good way. On December 16, , Comey said that the FBI investigation had concluded that "there is no doubt that [Abdulazeez] was inspired, motivated by foreign terrorist organization propaganda.

According to professor Charles Kurzman , the shootings were part of a "shift away from large-scale elaborate attempts to use weapons of mass destruction or other high-profile plots — the hallmark of al-Qaida and its affiliates — toward a lower tech do-it-yourself strategy" propagated by ISIL and other groups. The terrorist threat has evolved into a new phase.

It is this type of attack that we saw at Fort Hood in , in Chattanooga earlier this year and now in San Bernardino. Muslim and mosque leaders across Tennessee condemned the shootings. Paul Galloway, representing the American Muslim Advisory Council, said that Muslims in Tennessee "express our deepest condolences to the victims and their families.

Terrorists seek to divide our society, and we pray that all Americans will stand together united against their wanton violence and hatred. In the wake of the shootings, Defense Secretary Ashton Carter and Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson called for increased security measures at federal facilities out of caution. He put an emphasis of added security at small, unguarded facilities such as the two military installations attacked by Abdulazeez.

On August 15, during a speech at a memorial for the victims, he called for a review of domestic security procedures for military installations across the country. The investigation is headed by a twenty-person team, which submitted a page report on September Senator Ron Johnson R-WI announced his intention to introduce a bill that would end the ban on firearms being carried in military installations.

In August , General Max Hastings of the Tennessee National Guard announced that he has made the decision to allow firearms carry permit holders carry their firearms while in uniform. Representative Goins wrote and passed legislation that would lower the carry permit age for national guard members and veterans, and active military who were 18 or older.

On July 18, two days after the shootings, the governors of Florida , Texas , and Indiana ordered the arming of National Guardsmen at military offices and other facilities, along with the installation of bulletproof glass and more efficient video surveillance equipment. In , Utah had passed legislation allowing soldiers at National Guard facilities to carry weapons.

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