FBI says whether Tennessee shooting suspect was radicalized remains elusive

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) said on Wednesday the deceased suspect of shootings at Chattanooga military facilities in Tennessee last week acted on his own, but the agency could not determine at this point whether he was radicalized.

Speaking at a briefing, Ed Reinhold, FBI Special Agent in charge of the investigation said the investigation was still in its early stage and whether Muhammad Youssef Abdulazeez, a 24-year- old naturalized U.S. citizen originally from Kuwait, was radicalized was still unknown.

Local media reported earlier that U.S. authorities had found evidence that Abdulazeez followed a radical American member of the extremist group Al-Qaeda on-line in 2013.

"At this time, we're treating him as a homegrown violent extremist," said Reinhold. "We believe he entered the facility on his own. We do not have any indication that anyone else was assisting him on that day."

In shooting spree at two Chattanooga military facilities in Tennessee on Thursday, Abdulazeez killed four U.S. Marines and fatally wounded a Navy sailor who later died on Saturday. He was shot dead during confrontation with the police.

During the latest official update of the investigation, a week after Abdulazeez killed four U.S. Marines and fatally wounded a Navy sailor who later passed away on Saturday, the authorities offered a rare glimpse into the shooting incidents by telling reporters that all of the slain U.S. military service men were killed by a single weapon. According to Reinhold, three guns were found on Abdulazeez.

While refraining himself from offering details of the investigation, including where Abdulazeez purchased the firearms, Reinhold provided a more detailed timeline of Thursday's shooting incidents. Local police had said earlier that the two shooting incidents, which lasted for about 30 minutes, happened first at a military recruiting center and then the Naval Reserve Center about 10 kilometers apart.

According to Reinhold, after shooting bullets at a military recruiting center in a Chattanooga mall, Abdulazeez drove away and later crashed the rented car into the gate of the Naval Reserve Center, where he exited his car and started shooting.

The four Marines were killed by Abdulazeez outside a building within the center complex and the U.S. Navy sailor was fatally wounded after he entered the building.

The shooting incidents came at a time when the U.S. authorities were becoming increasingly concerned about threats posed by domestic sympathizers of the extremist group the Islamic State. Enditem