Kuwaiti government disputes Abdulazeez was 'of Kuwaiti origin'

They claim the gunman was Jordanian

July 17, 2015 at 5:52 p.m. | Updated July 17, 2015 at 5:56 p.m.

by Andy Sher

Allan Russell comforts his wife, Dee, after they visited a makeshift memorial outside the Armed Forces Career Center on Friday, July 17, 2015, in Chattanooga, Tenn. Counterterrorism investigators are trying to figure out why a 24-year-old Kuwait-born man, who by accounts lived a typical life in suburban America, attacked the career center and a Navy-Marine training center a few miles away in a shooting rampage that killed four Marines.
Allan Russell comforts his wife, Dee, after they visited a makeshift memorial outside the Armed Forces Career Center on Friday, July 17, 2015, in Chattanooga, Tenn. Counterterrorism investigators are trying to figure out why a 24-year-old Kuwait-born man, who by accounts lived a typical life in suburban America, attacked the career center and a Navy-Marine training center a few miles away in a shooting rampage that killed four Marines.

Nashville -Kuwaiti officials are disputing that Mohammad Youssef Abdulazeez, named as the shooter who opened fire and killed four Marines in Chattanooga, is of "Kuwaiti origin."

The government's official Kuwait News Agency said in a posting on its website that the "Interior Ministry on Friday confirmded [sic] that the man who killed four US marines in two military facilities in Chattanooga, Tennessee, on Thursday was not of 'Kuwaiti origin.'"

The news release said "the 'terrorist' who was subsequently killed was 'of Jordanian origin, born in Kuwait' in 1990 during the Iraqi invasion of the country."

It also said that Abdulazeez, 24, only visited Kuwait once, arriving on May 31, 2010, and departing for Jordan on June 18, 2010.

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