A US Federal Law Enforcement Official said the two had contact with people from at least two militant organizations overseas, including the Al Qaida-affiliated Nusra Front in Syria.
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The group’s declaration, in an online radio broadcast comes three days after U.S.-born Syed Rizwan Farook, 28, and his spouse, Tashfeen Malik, 29, a native of Pakistan, carried out the attack on a holiday party for civil servants in San Bernardino, about 60 miles (100 km) east of Los Angeles.
The massacre, if proven to be terror-related, would be the deadliest such assault on American soil since the September 11, 2001 attacks.
Bowdich said the FBI hoped examination of data retrieved from two smashed cellphones and other electronic devices seized in the investigation would lead to a motive for the attack.
It has emerged Farook and Malik had rented a home near a location where investigators found thousands of rounds of ammunition and homemade bombs, including 12 pipe bombs, leading to the conclusion that more attackers were planned.
‘We’re not sure which one (fanatical ideology) they picked in this case, despite the media accounts, ‘ Lynch said.
– Associated Press writer Asim Tanveer in Karor Lal Esam, Pakistan _ 2:40 a.m. The Islamic State group’s official radio station has aired a statement saying the mass shooting in California was carried out by two “supporters” of the extremist group.
It was not clear if the comments were posted by Malik, or by someone with access to her page.
US officials have acknowledged that they had no information about the couple before the killing other than a routine request by Farook to grant Malik a visa so she could join him in the United States so they could marry.
She said after conducting 300 interviews, investigators “do not have evidence that they were part of either a larger group or cell, or that they were planning anything else”. “There is no indication that they are part of a network”. A neighbor says an old friend of Farook’s is the person that lives in the house. The couple died hours later in a shootout with police.
Several men at the mosque who knew Farook said he loved cars and would often perform free oil changes for people in the parking lot.
But the official said the contact was with “people who weren’t significant players on our radar” and dated back some time.
Davis said the agency isn’t publicizing where the rifles were sold, and declined to name the person who purchased the rifles citing the ongoing investigation.
Farook family attorneys, holding a news conference in Los Angeles, denied there was any evidence that either the husband or wife harbored extremist views.
Malik is said to have pledged allegiance to ISIL’s leader.
“She was very conservative”.
BABY TOYS, A KORAN: SHOOTERS’ HOME THROWN OPEN TO MEDIA Redlands Baby toys, shredded files, a Koran, computer paraphernalia: the home of the California shooters was bizarrely – and controversially – thrown open to the media on Friday, offering a glimpse of the life of the couple behind the carnage. The couple had a 6-month-old daughter, now in the care of social service authorities.
President Barack Obama says the United States “will not be terrorised” by Wednesday’s mass shootings in San Bernardino, California.
The source said that “Farook visited Saudi Arabia to perform the rites of the minor pilgrimage (Umrah) in July 2014, and then left the city of Jeddah for Britain”. She is said to have worn Western-style clothing but switched to more traditional garments such as a burka, which covers the body, three years ago. Pakistani officials mentioned that Tashfeen Malik returned to the Layyah District in the province of Punjab, Pakistan where she lived in order to study Pharmacy at the University of Bahauddin Zakariya in Multan.
The San Bernardino attacks have raised concerns among Muslim-Americans of an anti-Islamic backlash.
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The perpetrators of the recent mass shootings in San Bernardino, California, did not meet in the Kingdom, a Saudi source told Asharq Al-Awsat.
