"The signs just weren't there," - Chattanooga

[grzegorz]

http://news.yahoo.com/u-navy-petty-offi ... 42080.html

Yahoo News

Tennessee suspect texted friend link to Islamic verse before attack
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Reuters By Richard Valdmanis 29 minutes ago
By Richard Valdmanis

CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. (Reuters) - Hours before the Tennessee shooting that killed five U.S. servicemen, the suspected gunman texted his close friend a link to a long Islamic verse that included the line: "Whosoever shows enmity to a friend of Mine, then I have declared war against him."

The friend, who requested anonymity, showed the text message to Reuters on Saturday. He said he thought nothing of the message at the time, but now wonders if it was a hint at Thursday's attack in Chattanooga.

The suspect, Mohammod Youssuf Abdulazeez, a 24-year-old Kuwaiti-born naturalized U.S. citizen, was killed in a gunfight with police. The FBI is investigating the shooting as an act of terrorism, but said it was premature to speculate on the gunman's motive.

The rampage has re-ignited concerns about the radicalization of young Muslim men. Abdulazeez's friends said he returned from a trip to Jordan in 2014 concerned about conflicts in the Middle East and the reluctance of the United States and other countries to intervene.

After the trip, he purchased three assault rifles on an online marketplace and used them for target practice, the friends said.

"He expressed that he was upset about (the Middle East). But I can't imagine it drove him to this," said the friend who received the text message.

Authorities said Abdulazeez sprayed gunfire at a joint military recruiting center in a strip mall in Chattanooga, then drove to a Naval Reserve Center about 6 miles (10 km) away, where he killed four Marines before he himself was shot dead.

Three other people were injured, including a U.S. Navy petty officer who died from his wounds on Saturday.

The Navy did not give the name of the sailor, but his step-grandmother identified him as Navy Petty Officer 2nd Class Randall Smith of Paulding, Ohio, who left behind a wife and three young daughters.

"He was an awesome young man," Darlene Proxmire told Reuters. "He loved his wife and children. He loved the Navy."

JORDAN TRIP WAS "EYE-OPENING"

Abdulazeez's friends, who asked not to be identified for fear of a backlash, said he was upset about the 2014 Israeli bombing campaign in Gaza and the civil war in Syria.

"He felt Jordan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia were not doing enough to help, and that they were heavily influenced by the United States," said the friend who received the text message.

Another friend said, "He had always talked about it, but I'd say his level of understanding and awareness really rose after he came back."

Abdulazeez, an engineer, had occasionally smoked marijuana and drank alcohol, and struggled to reconcile that with his faith in Islam, the friends said. At one point, in 2012 or 2013, he received therapy for his drugs and alcohol use, they said.

"He used it to de-stress, when things were difficult at home, or whatever," the first friend said, adding that tensions between Abdulazeez and his Palestinian parents had upset him. His parents nearly got divorced in 2009, according to court records.

Abdulazeez also had problems with local youths that sometimes took on a religious and racial tone, the friend said.

"There were rednecks, ignorant people, who sometimes would cause problems. Mo never fought, but he used to get worked up and yell and stuff," he said. "Afterwards he would calm down, and just say it doesn't matter."

Abdulazeez went to the Middle East in 2010 and visited several countries, according to the friend. He then went to Jordan in 2014 to work for his uncle, and lived with his uncle and his grandparents there, the friend said.

"That trip was eye-opening for him. He learned a lot about the traditions and culture of the Middle East. He said he really enjoyed it and wished to go back some day."

After Abdulazeez returned, he seemed more mellow to his friends, less interested in partying.

"That is part of what drew us closer. He was a guy who wanted to settle down and get his life going. That connected us," the friend said.

GUNS, FAST CARS

Abdulazeez had purchased three guns on armslist.com after returning from Jordan, including an AK-74, an AR-15, and a Saiga 12, his friends said. They said he also owned a 9mm and a .22 caliber hand guns.

Over the past few months, Abdulazeez and his friends practiced shooting in the Prentice Cooper state forest near Chattanooga, sometimes two or three times a week.

"He was always interested in guns, since he was young. He started with a BB gun and paintball, and went on from there. We would go out shooting quite often," said the friend who received the text message.

Abdulazeez also liked driving fast in the hills surrounding Chattanooga.

Two nights before the attack, he and some friends went joyriding in Abdulazeez's rented gray convertible Ford Mustang, passing through the towns of Whitwell, Dayton and Jasper.

"Fast car on a rainy night. We were flying, doing tight turns and drifting," said the friend, adding that they returned home at about 3 o'clock in the morning.

"He seemed totally normal. We made plans to hang out on the weekend," he said.

The night before the attack, just after 10 p.m., the friend received a text from Abdulazeez with this link to a Hadith, or Islamic teaching: http://sunnah.com/nawawi40/3.

For jihadists and ultraconservative Salafist Sunni Muslims, the Hadith "is usually understood within the context of al-wala wa-l-bara (or) love for Islam and hatred for its enemies," said David Cook, an associate professor who specializes in Islam in the department of religion at Rice University in Texas.

It was unusual for Abdulazeez to send such a link, said his friend, who had been asking Abdulazeez for job advice.

"I didn't see it as a hint at the time, but it may have been his way of telling me something," he said. He continued to text Abdulazeez that evening and into Thursday but did not get a reply.

The friend said he has been interviewed by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

He said Abdulazeez had a good paying job and many plans for his life, including possibly starting a computer sales business in Chattanooga. "He wanted to buy a car. He wanted a video console, to make a man cave - every guy's dream."

He said it was difficult to understand how his friend became the suspect in the rampage.

"The signs just weren't there," he said. "The only thing I can think of is that it was a combination of things - what is happening overseas, his family problems, maybe some of the issues with the less educated people here. I don't know."

After the shooting, the friend texted Abdulazeez, asking him if he had heard about the attack. "I guess he knew about it before I did."

(Additional reporting by Frank McGurty in New York, Mark Hosenball in Washington, Brendan O'Brien in Milwaukee and Alex Dobuzinskis in Los Angeles; Editing by Tiffany Wu)

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[yeniseri]

The signs were always there but they were either ignored or they applied the wrong algorithm in assessments/analyses
'Lone wolves' are getting harder to find because when you have smart people, they use ways to hide the obvious (the 'trail)'though in retrospect, their tools become apparent. Sadly, too late.

[leifeng]

Sad story but now at least he knows why his name would cause national security alerts.

[jimmy]

I was in Chattanooga two days before the shooting... on my birthday, Bastille day, with my daughter, wife, sister, and mother... taking little ankle biter monkey to the aquarium. It was nice. We saw otters, turtles, alligators, snakes, butterflies, sturgeon, gar, catfish, trout, rays, sharks, minnows, frogs, jellyfish, eels, and other people -- mainly white, several black -- "bi-racial" families a few. I saw absolutely 0% "global" cultural representatives, whether immigrants or tourists. I heard 0% non-English language. My sister encountered two different groups of people that she knew, from two completely different parts of the state -- all lily cracker white (as are we). On our way to Chattanooga, we crossed the lake created by the dam by which Mr. Abdulazeez was employed. Ankle biter monkey was amazed at such a wide stretch of water. She wanted to go swimming in it. I kinda did, too. On our way home, my wife drove and Monkey and I slept -- the pleasant banter of Mom, Sis, and Hon hung as a mellifluous backdrop to our reverie.

There were no signs here, except an excruciatingly mono-cultural town, cursed and blessed with the worst and best that Tennessee culture has to offer. I can only imagine how hard it must have been for Mr. Abdulazeez to have grown up here, in a place where his native Tennessean accent would have twanged just like the rest of us, would have elicited all the same hillbilly stereotypes across the northern and western stretches of wider America, yet also would have never offered the comforting insider identity as "one of us." His yearbook quote shows the identity which was forced upon him from kindergarten onward. A post-9.11 sum'bitch who was surely up to no good. When a teacher labels some child "a bad one," how many of those kids eventually come to believe that that label must be true and gradually learn to act it out? For after all, negative attention is better than no attention at all! "Turrist, you say," Mr. Abdulazeez must have said, "I'll show you a g-ddam turrist" -- in his perfectly inflected Tennessee cadence -- "I'll show you one whom you could have embraced and called brother, one with whom you could have bitched about the generally appalling state of American moral turpitude, one with whose children your children could have gazed in amazement at otters, turtles, alligators, snakes, butterflies, sturgeon, gar, catfish, trout, rays, sharks, minnows, frogs, jellyfish, eels, and other people."

I hope Mr. Abdulazeez's soul is frolicking at that lake created by the dam by which he was employed. I hope the souls of his victims will assemble there as well and share their beer with him on those rock-sandy shores and commiserate about the sum'bitch bully goats who terrorized their respective elementary school playgrounds -- those so cocksure and alpha-proud of the dominant cultural narratives which were ignorantly raped into their immaculate childlike minds. "Chattanoogans," that band of merry revelers will say, "lets show 'em some g-ddam Chattanoogans!" "After all, they might need some of our fish, or this water in which they swim."

Ankle biter monkey was amazed at such a wide stretch of water. I kinda was, too.

[grzegorz]

Thanks for sharing your thoughts.

Yeah, I get the impression it's a very nice place there and it would be impossible to imagine hearing an AK going off in the middle of the day as heard in this video.

Watch "Witness records gunfire during Chattanooga shooting" on YouTube

https://youtu.be/XflSx34G19Q

The internet has changed everything and I think more and more people are becoming radicalized in their beliefs and are turning to violence to make their point.

In fact there are already a ton of videos calling this a hoax.

[yeniseri]

Outwardly, I am sure, all was good. The 'minute aggressions" are unseen, ungrounded, etc are potential triggers for many behaviours. They can easily be pretended that they don't exist, or the aggressors are so 'treacherous' that because the victim does not respond to the 'insults' they assume that 'oh, he was such a good sport'. I saw of the fellow's news related reports that he stated that even though he was a 'good ole boy' (my paraphrase) he was still treated differently because of his name.

[Steve James]

If anybody with any sense wanted to create a Muslim fifth-column in the US, the first thing he'd do would be to change his name to Joe Smith. That is the type of organization that would frighten me. I agree that the internet allows anyone to be radicalized.

[grzegorz]

Sad story but now at least he knows why his name would cause national security alerts.

True, but I also read that as he knew "his place" in society as a Muslim.

It's not a justification for killing innocent people but the fact is most humor comes out of pain.

It's ironic that one of the victim's fathers fought to liberate Kuwait only to have his son killed by a Kuwaiti.

What a tragedy!

[yeniseri]

If anybody with any sense wanted to create a Muslim fifth-column in the US, the first thing he'd do would be to change his name to Joe Smith. That is the type of organization that would frighten me. I agree that the internet allows anyone to be radicalized.

This was the strategy of the Mumbai fellow! He changed his name to look the part and he was able to carry on and no one suspected a thing until after it happened.