Chattanooga, Tennessee (CNN) A man sprays bullets from a silver convertible Mustang at a military recruiting center tucked into a Chattanooga, Tennessee, strip mall. He moves to another military facility a few minutes later, a few miles away, killing four Marines there before he dies.
Authorities have identified the man behind the carnage as Mohammad Youssuf Abdulazeez. What they haven't said is what spurred this once accomplished student, well-liked peer, mixed martial arts fighter and devout Muslim to do it.
Terrorism is one real possibility.
Hours after Thursday's shooting, U.S. Attorney Bill Killian told reporters that while it's still early in the investigation, authorities are treating it as an "act of domestic terrorism."
Ed Reinhold, the FBI special agent in charge in eastern Tennessee, stressed that investigators "have not determined whether it was an act of terrorism or whether ... it was a simple, criminal act." He added that as of just before midnight Thursday, "we don't have anything that directly ties him to an international terrorist organization."
Finding out Abdulazeez's motive is a top priority, as is learning who he interacted with and how they might factor into the bloodshed.
"We are checking every possible place that he ... could have resided, visited, where he shopped, where he went to school, who his friends were, if he worked out at a gym," said Reinhold. "Every possible lead."
Two shooting scenes, four Marines killed
Gina Mule was opening up her restaurant late Thursday in a small plaza along Chattanooga's Lee Highway when she heard a "pow, pow, pow!"
"He never got out of the car. He had a big, huge, high-powered rifle, and he was unloading shots right into the recruiters," referring to the offices of an Armed Forces Recruiting Center. "There had to be 20 to 30 shots."
"Shortly after that, we heard the (shots). It was very loud and very fast," she said. "It was insane."Watching from a nearby hair salon, April Grimmett saw a man ducking in between cars.
It only got worse.
Over the next half-hour, the 24-year-old with an engineering degree from the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga drove his rental car to a Navy operational support center 7 miles away, a law enforcement official said.
Abdulazeez rammed the gates of that center and got into the facility, according to Reinhold, who added that investigators are still trying to pin down whether or not he got inside a building.
He was armed with an AK-47-style weapon and 30-round magazines, according to two law enforcement officials. He kept police at bay for some time before being killed, with Reinhold saying Thursday night it "has not been determined ... how he died."
A Marine recruiter, who has since been treated and released from a hospital, was wounded in the first shooting, and four Marines were killed at the second scene.
The military hasn't released their names. But social media, including a Facebook post from a brother who owns a bar and restaurant in Springfield, Massachusetts, indicates that one of the dead is Thomas Sullivan, a Springfield native who was a Marine gunnery sergeant.
Another sailor was in "pretty serious" condition after surgery, a Pentagon official said.
Also, a police officer was shot in the ankle. A law enforcement source close to the investigation identified him as Dennis Pedigo, one of the first responders on the scene.
Who was the shooter?
Abdulazeez was not in any U.S. databases of suspected terrorists, a U.S. official said. He was born in Kuwait and had Jordanian citizenship, two law enforcement officials said. He was a naturalized U.S. citizen, one official said.
He's spent much of his time in southeastern Tennessee, and was arrested in April for allegedly driving under the influence. (He'd been scheduled to appear in court in that case later this month.)
And he may have traveled back to the Middle East in recent years.
to "move back home." Since then, Dizdarevic said, when he ran into Abdulazeez at a Tennessee mosque several times, his former student told him he was teaching wrestling and doing well.
Neighbor Dean McDaniel said he'd known the family for most of his 17 years living in the Chattanooga suburb of Hixson, Tennessee. He first crossed paths with Mohammad Abdulazeez when he was an elementary school student and later would see him from time to time when he visited his sisters while they were babysitting McDaniel's children.
"He was a good kid. ... They're good people," he said. "I've never had any kind of conflict with them."
Kevin Emily, his former high school wrestling coach, described Abdulazeez as "a great student" who sometimes missed practice to pray.
"He always contributed, always did what I asked him to do. I never had any problems out of Mohammad," Emily told CNN's "Erin Burnett OutFront." "He was very humble when he was in high school. He'd always listen to me, looked me in the eye. He was just -- in high school he was a great kid."
A quote appeared beside his photos in his high school yearbook: "My name causes national security alerts. What does yours do?"
For years, Samantha Barnette sat next to him in class, but now she said she feels like she never really knew him.
"He was also incredibly intelligent, which really makes me wonder about his true motives for doing this," said Barnette, who posted a photo of the yearbook page on Facebook. "He was always getting recognized for his high grades and getting awards all throughout school. It's upsetting to see him waste it all."
What was the security situation?
The shooting left the city reeling and raised questions about security at the military centers.
"Today was a nightmare for the city of Chattanooga," Mayor Andy Berke said. "We had someone viciously attack, at two different locations, people who proudly serve our country."
Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson said authorities were stepping up security at "certain federal facilities, out of an abundance of caution" after the shootings.Authorities haven't released details about where at the centers the victims were shot.
"We take all shootings very seriously," President Barack Obama said. "Obviously when you have an attack on a U.S. military facility, then we have to make sure that we have all the information necessary to make an assessment in terms of how this attack took place and what further precautions we can take in the future."
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