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A booking photo from April 2015 and released by the Hamilton County Sheriff's Office shows Mohammad Youssuf Abdul Azeez, a 24-year-old Kuwaiti-born man suspected of gunning down four Marines in a deadly rampage in Tennessee before being shot dead on July 16, 2015. The Marine Corps confirmed that all four victims were killed at a Navy and Marine Corps Reserve Center in the late morning. About 40 minutes earlier, the gunman had opened fire at a recruitment center several miles away. Image Credit: AFP

Dubai: The shooter in last week’s killing of five US servicemen in Tennessee transited through Qatar on his way back from a 2014 visit to Jordan but never set foot outside the airport, authorities in the Gulf nation said on Tuesday as they condemned the deadly attack.

Meanwhile, US and Jordanian officials are examining Kuwait-born Mohammad Yousuf Abdul Aziz’s trip to Jordan, looking for clues into what might have prompted him to open fire at a military recruiting office and a Navy-Marine operations center in Chattanooga on Thursday, killing four Marines and one sailor.

Media reports have suggested he also visited Qatar on the same trip. But Qatar’s government insisted his time in the country was limited to its international airport.

“At no time did Mr Abdul Aziz enter the State of Qatar. Statements suggesting Mr Abdul Aziz entered the State of Qatar are false,” Qatar’s government media office said in a statement responding to questions from The Associated Press.

It said Abdul Aziz changed planes at Doha’s Hamad International Airport on his way from Amman, Jordan in November en route to the US

The Qatari government condemned the shootings as “contrary to all humanitarian values, ethics, principles and religions,” and expressed its condolences over the killings.

Jordanian authorities, meanwhile, have been questioning relatives of Abdul Aziz as part of an investigation into the time he spent in the kingdom last year, a government official said on Tuesday. The official, who would not elaborate on the probe, spoke on condition of anonymity.

A person close to Abdul Aziz’s family has told the AP that he spent several months in Jordan last year under a mutual agreement with his parents to help him get away from drugs, alcohol and a group of friends whom his relatives considered a bad influence. The person spoke on condition of anonymity out of concern it would have business repercussions.

Abdul Aziz, who was of Palestinian origin, was born in Kuwait and grew up in the United States, but has relatives in Jordan and the West Bank.