Hifza Batool said other relatives have said that Malik, who was her step-niece, used to wear Western clothes but began wearing the hijab head covering or the all-covering burka about three years ago.
Advertisement
Cohen says the counterterrorism infrastructure is built on preventing tightly organized attacks directed by a specific group, not detecting people inspired by IS but operating independently. He also declined to rule out that future possibility.
Update 3:41 p.m. ET: FBI Director James Comey said in a media briefing there is no indication the two suspects in the shooting are part of a larger network, or a terrorist “cell”.
“Based on the information and the facts as we know them, we are now investigating these horrific acts as an act of terrorism”, assistant FBI Los Angeles director David Bowdich said. He would not elaborate.
“The FBI is leading this investigation because of the possibility that this is a terrorist attack”, a White House spokesman said.
“We are going to have to start looking at things”, Trump told reporters ahead of a speech in Iowa.
“What we hope you will do is not let fear become disabling but to instead try to channel it into an awareness of your surroundings” he said, calling on people to speak to authorities if they see something that “doesn’t make sense”.
He said the shooters had attempted to erase their digital footprints and that agents had recovered two deliberately destroyed cellphones.
Farook had no criminal record and was not on a watch list by either local of federal law enforcement before Wednesday’s massacre.
Malik reportedly moved from Pakistan to Saudi Arabia and eventually came to the U.S. in 2014 on a fiancee visa.
Malik was described as a shy, quiet person who kept to herself, according to Farook’s sister and her husband, who appeared on CBS.
An IS-affiliated news agency Aamaq says the two shooters in the deadly California attack were “supporters” of the Islamic State group, but it stopped short of claiming responsibility for the attack.
Initial reports indicated that the shooting at the city’s Inland Regional Center was a holiday party for county public health employees, and that Farook had left the party angrily earlier in the evening.
“No one gets upset at a party, goes home… and puts together this elaborate scheme or plan”, Police Chief Jarrod Burguan said Thursday.
“I only found out about this tragedy today when some intelligence officials contacted me to ask me about my links with Tashfeen”, Malik’s uncle, Javed Rabbani, said in an interview.
Advertisement
Foreigners applying from countries that are home to Islamic extremists – such as Pakistan – undergo additional scrutiny before the State Department and Homeland Security approve their applications.
