Finally, FBI insiders are blowing the whistle on the FBI’s investigation of Muhammad Youssef Abdulazeez, who opened fire on two military installations in Chattanooga, Tennessee.
The FBI had the shooter on its terrorism radar for years, according to insiders, even though officially then-FBI Director James Comey and FBI brass painted Abdulazeez as a mystery man and ‘lone wolf’ shooter.
The reality: He was no stranger to the FBI.
Abdulazeez gunned down and killed four Marines and one Navy sailor as well as wounded a police officer and a Marine recruiter in 2015. The FBI investigated the deadly drive-by shooting but produced few details.
Comey, in fact, said Abdulazeez was likely “motivated by foreign terrorist organization propaganda.” And FBI brass claimed Abdulazeez, who was killed during the rampage, was not previously on the FBI’s terrorism radar even though his father was on at least one terror watch list.
The shooter’s actions and motivations were, therefore, largely a mystery, according to the official narrative of the FBI. Eventually, the Bureau said the Tennessee shootings were Islamist terrorism likely inspired by foreign terrorist organizations.
Now federal law enforcement sources are providing new evidence that disputes the ‘official FBI’ story and sheds a disturbing light on Abdulazeez’s activities prior to the shootings. In fact, Abdulazeez was on the FBI’s radar long before his thirty-minute rampage that terrorized the Armed Forces Career Center in a strip mall and a U.S. Navy Reserve center.
Years before.
Abdulazeez had been a federal surveillance target dating to approximately 2010, sources said. That was during Robert Mueller’s tenure as FBI director. Field reports pinpointing Abdulazeez and associates believed to have ties with ISIS were circulating both at the FBI from informants who were also providing similar reports to high-ranking Justice Department officials. Insiders said the Intel detailed Abdulazeez’s meetings with a small group of radicalized terror associates with direct links to ISIS.
Abdulazeez, in fact, began working as an engineer at the Perry Nuclear Generating Station in North Perry, Ohio. But in May 2013, he was fired just 10 days into the job because he failed a background check, sources said.
By that time, Comey was running the FBI after Mueller retired.
So why would the FBI lie about not knowing Abdulazeez?
Perhaps because Abdulazeez killed four Marines and a Navy sailor and intelligence insiders previously flagged not only Abdulazeez — who had earned an electrical engineering degree from the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga — but also associates linked to Abdulazeez years before the shootings.
In one scenario, law enforcement sources said the FBI was tipped off that this radical crew planned to attack a nuclear site with one or more military-style drones. Abdulazeez had a specialty in building highly functional drones, sources said.
More likely, however, Abdulazeez was possibly working with the FBI — unwittingly or not — and perhaps things went sideways. Handling radicalized Islamic terrorists is not an easy business. Just look at Omar Mateen in Orlando. Mateen’s father was a U.S. government asset and it is widely believed his son, who killed 50 people at the Pulse Nightclub, was as well. In fact, to insiders, there is little doubt he was on the Fed’s payroll.
Even more troubling here beyond the normal serving of FBI lies to the public about another mass shooting is the fact that the same insiders who flagged Abdulazeez to Justice Department officials also briefed members of Congress about the radical extremist, detailing how he spent months in Jordan prior to the deadly rampage in Tennessee.
Still, nothing happened.
Those law enforcement sources said the Congressmen never followed up on the warnings and Intel about Abdulazeez and his radical crew.
And from the looks of it, neither did the FBI.
Or perhaps it’s much deeper than that.
And where is the rest of the crew, since Abdulazeez was killed in a gunfight during his spree?
They are in the wind, insiders said. Gone.
They may have even planned or carried out more attacks on US targets or citizens worldwide, sources stressed.
After all, the FBI is not watching.
This story is developing. — Thomas Paine