Chattanooga shooter traveled to Qatar

The man who killed four US marines and a sailor in Chattanooga, Tennessee, before dying himself in a shootout with police last week traveled to Doha, Qatar during a seven-month trip to the Middle East last year, according to government sources.

Investigators continue to search for a motive in last Thursday's killings carried out by Muhammad Youssef Abdulazeez, and are trying to determine if there is any significance to his presence in a city that is home to both jihadist sympathizers and a US airbase.

In a statement to the media, a representative for Adbulazeez's family said the Kuwait-born 24-year-old was sent on the trip last year to visit family in Jordan in an effort to help him cope with crushing debt and suicidal thoughts, alongside drug and alcohol abuse.

In the weeks leading up to the shooting, Abdulazeez was having trouble handling his 12-hour night shifts at his new job for a company that designs and makes wire and cable products. He began taking sleeping tablets, the representative said, and was also abusing painkillers and preparing to file for bankruptcy.

Shooter's motive remains elusive

A diary from 2013 seized by the FBI described his thoughts of self-harm and "becoming a martyr," although a friend told CNN that Abdulazeez had described extremists like the "Islamic State" as "doing wrong" and being "completely against Islam."

The family representative reiterated that although he was troubled, Abdulazeez had shown no signs of becoming radicalized. The family admitted, however, that he was "susceptible to bad influences" and had been sent on his visit to Jordan to get him away from friends who they believed were corrupting him.

Abdulazeez had not been on the radar of authorities as a suspected terrorist. Neighbors, acquaintances and friends reported that his demeanor in the days before the shooting was completely normal.

Court records, however, reveal a volatile family life in a 2009 request for divorce filed by his mother, which she later dropped. He was arrested on April 20 of this year for driving under the influence of alcohol, an event that made him sink further into depression, according to friends.

His family believed his personal struggles must have been at the heart of his decision to carry out the shooting as they "do not know of anything else to explain it," a source who has been in contact with them said.

es/cmk (AP, AFP, Reuters)