A Navy petty officer wounded in the terror attack on two military recruiting centers in Chattanooga, Tennessee has died from his wounds.
The fallen soldier is Navy Petty Officer Randall Smith. He leaves behind a wife and three young daughters.
Smith’s mother Paula Proxmire went to the memorial site for those slain by Muhammad Youssef Abdulazeez and placed an American flag and baseball mitt in honor of her son. She said that America and baseball were her son’s passions.
“My son is a hero. He died doing what he loved. He would have had it no other way,” Proxmire, from Kansas, told NBC News. “He’s been my hero since the day I gave birth to him.”
Meanwhile, the family of Abdulazeez reportedly told investigators that their son suffered from depression and was a drug addict, so they sent him to Jordan to try and get him away from Chattanooga friends who were a “bad influence.” However, relatives and friends admitted they saw changes in his behavior after his return from seven months in Jordan.
Investigators say Abdulazeez sent a text message to a friend before the attacks that included the Islamic verse “Whoever shows enmity to a friend of mine, then I have declared war against him.”
The FBI reports there is nothing to connect the gunman to ISIS or any other international terrorism group.
Terrorism investigators are looking closely at a trip taken to Jordan by Mohammod Youssuf Abdulazeez to see if he had contact with known terrorists or terrorist sympathizers.
FBI officials say that Abdulazeez spent seven months in Jordan last year, one of several trips he had made to the region over the last few years. He went to Jordan in the last weeks of 2005, in the summer of 2008, the summer of 2010 and during the spring of 2013. The trips lasted anywhere from two weeks to two months.
Despite the pattern of trips, the FBI admitted Abdulazeez was not on their watch list of possible terrorist sympathizers or operatives.
However, his father had been investigated years prior for giving money to an organization that had suspected connections to terrorists.
Abdulazeez’s attack on two Navy recruiting centers left four Marines dead. They have been identified as Gunnery Sgt. Thomas Sullivan, of Springfield, Mass., Lance Cpl. Skip “Squire” Wells, of Marietta, Ga., Sgt. Carson Holmquist, of Grantsburg Wisc., and Staff Sgt. David Wyatt, of Chattanooga.
Security experts say that the shooting shows an inherent weakness in recruiting stations for the military. The locations need to be easily accessible to the public.
“They’re supposed to be convenient; they’re supposed to be easily accessible,” Brian Michael Jenkins, a security expert who is senior adviser to the president of the RAND Corporation, told the New York Times. “They’re virtually no more protected than a shoe store in a shopping mall.”
A gunman opened fire on two military recruitment centers in Chattanooga, Tennessee on Thursday, leaving soldiers dead and wounded.
Officials in the Chattanooga area say the gunman has been shot and killed and that they believe he is the only one involved in the attacks.
Fox News reported that four Marines were killed at one of the two centers. FBI officials confirmed others were injured and are being treated at local hospitals but there was no information on their condition.
The U.S. Prosecutor for the region said at a press conference the investigation is being conducted “as a case of domestic terrorism.” He added there is a joint federal, state and local investigation which is why much of the information about the shooting is being withheld from the media and public.
The FBI, ATF and the Department of Homeland Security were on the scene within hours and leading the investigation.
Ed Reinhold, special agent in charge of the FBI at the same news conference praised the local police department for the response and for “neutralizing the threat to the community.”
The FBI confirmed the suspect carried “multiple weapons” but would not describe the weapons. They believe that the gunman was residing in the area before the attack. Reinhold also said that while it’s being investigated as domestic terrorism, it’s possible the attack was not related to terrorism and just an act of violence.
FBI Director James Comey told reporters at FBI Headquarters that a least 10 people radicalized by ISIS were arrested in connection with plots to kill Americans on July 4th.
“I do believe that our work disrupted efforts to kill people, likely in connection with July 4th,” Comey said.
Comey did not release details of the arrests or investigations but said they involved “very serious efforts to kill people in the United States.” He could not confirm all those arrested were plotting Independence Day attacks but said “some of them were focusing on the Fourth of July.”
Comey had previously told Congress this week that ISIS and westerners being radicalized by the Islamic terror group had been using sophisticated encryption to keep investigators from being able to track their plans.
He said that because of the system being used, ISIS can activate potential terrorists on any day or the terrorists themselves could just decided to launch their plans.
“Rahim in Boston, I believe, was bent on doing something in the future,” Comey said referring to terrorist Usaama Rahim, “and woke up on the morning of June the 2nd and said, ‘You know what, I think today is the day,’ and just went out to try and kill people.”
FBI Director James Comey admitted to lawmakers that ISIS and other terrorist groups are using encryption methods as a way to avoid federal investigators.
“This is not your grandfather’s al Qaeda,” he told a Senate panel.
Comey said that ISIS has been effective in using social media outlets like Twitter where they have over 22,000 English-language followers.
“[It’s like a] devil in their pocket all day long that says ‘Kill, kill, kill,” Comey said. “There is simply no doubt that bad people can communicate with impunity in a world of universal strong encryption.”
“We cannot break strong encryption,” Comey told lawmakers on the Senate Intelligence Committee. “I think people watch TV and think the bureau can do lots of things. We cannot break strong encryption.”
Comey cited as an example the case of Usaamah Rahim, the Boston man killed when he attacked FBI and Boston Police as they tried to question him. The agents tracking him couldn’t see his exact plans because they went into an encrypted site.
The FBI calls that “going dark.”
“ISIL does something al-Qaida would never imagine: they test people by tasking them,” Comey told the senators. “Kill somebody and we’ll see if you are really a believer. And these people react in a way that is very difficult to predict. What you saw in Boston is what the experts say is flash-to-bang being very close. You had a guy who was in touch in an encrypted way with these ISIL recruiters and we believe was bent on doing something on July 4th. He woke up one morning, June 2nd, and decided he was going to go kill somebody.”
The FBI is investigating a string of arsons at black churches, the majority in the south.
The agency has confirmed that three of the fires being investigated were arson. The fires began less than a week after the massacre of 9 people at a South Carolina church made up of a predominantly black congregation.
“They’re being investigated to determine who is responsible and what motives are behind them,” FBI spokesperson Paul Bresson told BuzzFeed News. “I’m not sure there is any reason to link them together at this point.”
Churches have been burned in Tennessee, Georgia, South and North Carolina, Ohio and Florida. The ATF is taking the lead in the investigations
“ATF is the lead investigative agency, and we have special agents and certified fire investigators from several field divisions investigating the fires to determine cause and origin,” Ginger Colbrun, spokeswoman for the ATF, said in a statement provided to the Los Angeles Times on Monday. “We are in the early stages of these investigations, but at this time we have no reason to believe these fires are racially motivated or related.”
The pastor of Briar Creek Road Baptist Church in East Charlotte, North Carolina says that the arson at his church caused over $250,000 in damages.
“We have already forgiven them and we’re hoping that the investigation will take its place and do what’s necessary,” Kinsey told WBTV. “These buildings can be repaired, they can be built over. This is the opportunity for God to really touch the hearts of individuals … we don’t have any malice against anyone else.”
A fire at College Heights Baptist Church in Ohio reportedly caused over a million dollars in damage.
A North Carolina teenager is behind bars, accused of being part of a plan to kill Americans for ISIS.
19-year-old Justin Sullivan is accused of engaging in discussions with an undercover FBI agent over the last month about making a series of “minor assassinations” as training for major attack. Sullivan said that he was a “mujahid” and that he was a recent Muslim convert.
He said that when he made the attacks, he would send the videos to ISIS.
The teen said that he would pay the agent to kill his parents, that he would be using bombs and chemical weapons in his major attack and he had planned to buy a semi-automatic weapon and an upcoming gun show.
“As alleged in the complaint, the defendant was planning assassinations and violent attacks in the United States and is charged with attempting to provide material support to [ISIS] and federal firearms violations,” Assistant Attorney General John Carlin said in a statement. “The National Security Division’s highest priority is counterterrorism and we will continue to pursue justice against those who seek to provide material support to designated foreign terrorist organizations,” the Justice Department said in their statement.
The charge of conspiracy to provide material support to a designated foreign organization carries a maximum potential penalty of 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
Sullivan’s own parents tipped off authorities about his behavior.
“I don’t know if it is ISIS or what, but he is destroying Buddhas and figurines and stuff,” his father Rich Sullivan said in a 911 call. “I mean, we are scared to leave the house.”
Almost 30 Americans in 2015 have been charged in some way with attempting to support ISIS.
A 21-year-old New York City man is jailed after attempting to stab an FBI agent during a terrorist investigation raid.
Fareed Mumuni is accused of being a supporter of ISIS. The FBI raided his home in Staten Island Wednesday and during the raid he tried multiple times to stab an FBI agent.
“As the officers attempted to restrain (him), Mumuni repeatedly attempted to plunge the knife into the torso of an FBI special agent and reached out with his hand in the vicinity of a rifle used by another member of law enforcement,” read the criminal complaint.
The agent with the Joint Terrorism Task Force wasn’t injured as the knife was never able to penetrate his body armor.
Mumuni is believed to have been working with two other men to place pressure cooker bombs similar to those used in the Boston Marathon attacks around New York City.
Mumuni has confessed to discussing how to build a pressure cooker bomb with one of the other suspected terrorists and that he planned to join ISIS in the Middle East. He is being held without bail.
His relatives insist that Mumuni is innocent.
“It’s not true he pulled a knife on cops,” uncle Mohammed Alfonga said. “You think he’d be alive if he did that? They would have shot him in the living room.”
“He may have been caught with the wrong crowd,” Alfonga added. “The other guys said he’s involved, they have to arrest him. But they took everything, his computers. They didn’t find anything.”
There have been arrests of suspected ISIS sympathizers in 19 states in the last two years.
The FBI is currently conducting an operation to disrupt potential domestic terrorists who are being radicalized by ISIS.
ABC News confirmed that the operation is taking place and that the latest arrest happened in New York on Saturday. A college student thought al-Qaeda was “getting soft” and was “making efforts to prepare an explosive device for detonation.”
Fareed Mumuni, 21, has been charged with attempting to murder a federal employee after attacking a FBI agent with a knife during his arrest.
The arrest was part of an operation to take down Munther Omar Saleh, a 20-year-old American citizen now facing charges of conspiring to to provide material support to ISIS.
The papers filed by prosecutors claim Salah endorsed the ISIS attack on Charlie Hebdo in France and the attempted assault on the Draw Muhammad contest in Texas. He also endorsed several terrorists beheadings by ISIS.
Authorities said that investigations were underway in all 50 states and have already led to five arrests of suspected terrorist sympathizers.
A white gunman walked into a historically black church in Charleston, South Carolina on Wednesday night. He sat in the prayer service for about an hour before he pulled a gun, opened fire and killed 9 people including the pastor who was also a state senator.
The gunman has been identified by the FBI as 21-year-old Dylann Roof of Lexington, South Carolina. He was apprehended Thursday morning in Shelby, North Carolina, about three hours away from the shooting site.
“This is a situation that is unacceptable in any society and especially in our society and our city,” Charleston Police Chief Gregory Mullen said.
Officials confirmed that three men and six women were killed in the shooting. The gunman reportedly reloaded five times during the assault.
Witnesses said that the pastor, Clementa Pinckney, tried to talk the gunman out of the attack. Sylvia Johnson, a cousin of the pastor who survived the assault.
“He just said, ‘I have to do it. You rape our women and you’re taking over our country,” Johnson said.
The incident is being investigated as a hate crime.
“The only reason that someone could walk into a church and shoot people praying is out of hate,” Charleston Mayor Joseph P. Riley said. “It is the most dastardly act that one could possibly imagine, and we will bring that person to justice. … This is one hateful person.”