Biden: Shooter was ‘perverted jihadist’

Associated Press

CHATTANOOGA, Tenn.

Vice President Joe Biden on Saturday called the slaying of four Marines and a sailor at a Chattanooga reserve center the act of a “perverted jihadist.”

Biden’s comments came at a memorial to the five servicemen killed in a shooting rampage by Kuwait-born Muhammad Youssef Abdulazeez.

“These perverse ideologues, warped theocrats, they may be able to inspire a single lone wolf to commit a savage act, but they can never, never threaten who we are,” Biden said. “When this perverted jihadist struck, everyone responded.”

The vice president’s strong words contrast with the official comments of investigators who have not yet been able to determine a motive behind the attack. The FBI has said it has not been able to determine whether the 24-year-old Abdulazeez was “radicalized” before the July 16 attacks and has been treating him as a homegrown violent extremist.

Speaking before Biden, Secretary of Defense Ash Carter said officials may never know “what combination of disturbed mind, violent extremism and hateful ideology” was behind the shooting, but vowed that the United States would present a strong response.

“The few who threaten or incite harm to Americans – violent extremists or terrorists, wherever they are – will surely, very surely, no matter how long it takes, come to feel the long arm and the hard fist of justice,” Carter said.

Those killed were Navy Petty Officer 2nd Class Randall Smith and four Marines: Staff Sgt. David Wyatt, Sgt. Carson Holmquist, Gunnery Sgt. Thomas Sullivan and Lance Cpt. Squire “Skip” Wells, who just moments before had texted his girlfriend in Savannah, Ga., the words “ACTIVE SHOOTER.”