Like Ft. Hood Shooter, Abdulazeez Was a Follower of Al-Awlaki

And yet, “We may never know what his ultimate motivation was,” the senior official added.

FBI agents have found evidence that Chattanooga shooter Mohammod Abdulazeez was following a radical American member of al Qaeda online in 2013, as well as pages of writing that showed the young man was suicidal and looking for a way to absolve what he considered were his sins, according to a representative of Abdulazeez’s family.

Video tapes of Anwar al-Awlaki, the high-profile American al Qaeda cleric and recruiter, have circulated on the internet and have been popular in jihadist circles long after al-Awlaki’s death by American drone strike in September 2011.

Monday U.S. officials told ABC News that in 2013 Abdulazeez did online research for militant Islamist “guidance” on committing violence. The Internet searches were discovered on electronic devices such as his smartphone analyzed over the weekend by the FBI Lab in Quantico, Virginia, several counter-terrorism officials confirmed to ABC News.