Chattanooga Shooter Wrote About Suicide And Martyrdom

A journal belonging to the shooter who killed five servicemen in Chattanooga, Tennessee, last week contained passages about suicide and “becoming a martyr,” ABC News reported.

The FBI has obtained Mohammod Abdulazeez ‘s diary, and it chronicled some of his dark thoughts as far back as 2013. Passages also included criticism of the U.S government and the war on terror, CNN reported.

Relatives of the 24-year-old, who was killed by police in the shooting last week at two military sites, said he also abused drugs and alcohol, struggled with a graveyard shift at work and had trouble paying off debts.

His family previously said he’d been depressed “for many years.”

On Thursday, Abdulazeez shot up a military recruiting office in a strip mall. Then he drove a rented Ford Mustang with the top down to a Navy reserve center six miles away and opened fire again. He was armed with three guns and died in a firefight with police.

The FBI has not discovered any links between Abdulazeez and an overseas terrorist group. Last year, he traveled to the Middle East for seven months. It was already reported that he spent time in Jordan, but on Monday Reuters reported that he also visited Doha, Qatar.

A family spokesperson told The Associated Press on Sunday that Abdulazeez traveled to Jordan to escape the bad influences in his life. He reportedly had abused sleeping pills, painkillers, marijuana and alcohol. In April, he was arrested for a DUI, and police claimed to smell marijuana in the car and saw a white powder on his nose.

One of Abdulazeez's friends told CNN Monday that the gunman disapproved of the terrorist group ISIS. He also said that Abdulazeez taught him to use an AR-15 assault rifle.

Abdulazeez was an American citizen who was born in Kuwait and also had Jordanian citizenship. But he'd grown up in the Chattanooga area, attending high school and college there.