Breaking: Vegas Shooter Traveled to Middle East

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A new report indicates that Las Vegas shooter Stephen Paddock traveled to the Middle East, leading to yet more speculation about the possible motives of the man behind America’s deadliest mass shooting.

CNN reported Friday that Paddock had taken more than 20 cruises. While that isn’t unusual for someone of Paddock’s means, some of his destinations have raised eyebrows.

“The cruises included stops at ports in Spain, Italy, Greece, Jordan and the United Arab Emirates, according to information provided by a law enforcement source who asked not to be identified because the source was not authorized to share information about the investigation,” CNN reported.

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“Paddock’s girlfriend, Marilou Danley, accompanied him on nine of the cruises.”

Trips to Jordan and the United Arab Emirates wouldn’t ordinarily raise eyebrows these days — both, after all, are somewhat common travel destinations, and only the most conspiratorially inclined would draw a direct line between visiting those countries and having a terrorist motive.

Two things, however, make the visits look more suspicious. First, there’s the lack of any perceptible motive for the shooting on Paddock’s part, putting every aspect of his life under intense scrutiny. Second, there’s the continued insistence by the Islamic State group that Paddock had been radicalized by the terrorist organization.

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The claim was made again in the group’s Arabic-language propaganda newspaper, according to the U.K. Independent. They said that Paddock was a “soldier of (the) caliphate” and that he had converted six months before the attack. They even referred to him by his supposed Muslim name — Abu Abdul Barr al-Amriki.

While the claim seems a bit farfetched, the fact that the Islamic State group seems to be doubling — in fact, tripling — down on it is odd, all things considered. It could be indicative of the desperation of the Islamic State group, particularly since the group has suffered a wave of crippling defeats.

While this latest puzzle piece pointing toward a definitive motive seems extremely unlikely, everything about the Las Vegas massacre seems extremely unlikely. Maybe in time we’ll know exactly what made Paddock kill dozens of innocent people, or at least have a reasonable idea of it.

For now, however, it becomes another strange addend in an equation that nobody can quite work out the solution to.

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