Chattanooga : A 24-year-old gunman opened fire at two US military centers in Tennessee on Thursday, killing four marines in a rampage that officials said was being investigated as an act of “domestic terrorism.”
The shooter — identified by the FBI as 24-year-old Mohammod Youssuf Abdulazeez — was himself shot dead in a firefight with police. Three people were injured — a police officer, a Marine Corps recruiter and a Navy sailor.
The incident served as an ugly reminder of other deadly shootings at US military installations, including a 2009 rampage at Fort Hood that left 13 dead and a 2013 attack at the Navy Yard in Washington that left 12 dead. It also came amid lingering fears about the threat posed by “lone wolf” attackers in the United States, though the motive in Thursday’s attacks was not immediately clear.
President Barack Obama called the shootings “heartbreaking” and asked Americans to pray for the relatives of the victims.
Abdulazeez lived in a leafy suburb of Chattanooga. US media reported that he was a naturalized US citizen born in Kuwait.
He had graduated from the University of Tennessee with a degree in engineering. A woman who attended school with Abdulazeez said he was a quiet kid, and well-liked. The shooter, first, sprayed a hail of bullets at the glass doors of a military recruiting centre.
Then the gunman moved on to his next target more than seven miles away: a Naval reserve centre. There, he rammed into a gate at some point during his shooting rampage and was eventually killed by police.
In the wake of the incident, a Sikh rights group has asked Sikh-American community members to exercise caution as they become vulnerable to hate crimes following such incidents. The shooter was bearded.
