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FBI searches California lake near massacre site

(AP Photo/Jae C. Hong).

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But Farook shelved the attack after the Federal Bureau of Investigation made a round of terror-related arrests in different cities, Eyewitness News has learned.

Director James Comey has said that Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik were planning the San Bernardino shootings before they had even met. According to Comey the alleged killers were already radacalised before they had any contact with one another and Farook may have visited Saudi Arabia and Pakistian to find an accomplice to commit the crime with.

Meanwhile, the investigation into the shootings that left 14 dead last week continued in San Bernardino, where an FBI dive team searched a small, urban lake about 3 miles north of the shooting site. The young convert attended prayers sporadically, sometimes missing them for months at a time, and he confided to Hasan that he was struggling with Islam.

The father works as an engineer, as do his two sons, according to a Pakistani counterterrorism official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the press.

Mr Marquez purchased high-powered weapons at least three years ago that Farook and his wife used to open fire on a holiday gathering of Farook’s fellow health inspectors on December 2, killing 14 people.

Hoyt said she doesn’t expect payments to be delayed, but one vendor was told by a center official some checks would be five days late.

In a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Wednesday, Senator Charles Grassley of Iowa said Malik had listed a false address in Pakistan that screeners did not catch.

Farook took out a loan for $28,500 in November, multiple law enforcement officials told CNN.

“I don’t think we know yet enough to say these were apparent without the advantage of hindsight”, Schiff said.

A law enforcement source said investigators are focusing on how Malik obtained the K-1 fiancée visa that the United States issued so she could come to the country with Farook.

The FBI has interviewed hundreds of people and conducted searches looking for evidence.

The revelations by Comey appear to counter an earlier theory studied by investigators that Malik may have radicalized her husband, appearing as the driving force behind the attacks.

Schiff said there was no indication of a “public use of social media that was missed” but noted “there are other ways that you can communicate without being seen”.

Kabir lived in Riverside, which is near San Bernardino.

Multiple lawmakers raised the fact that neighbors saw suspicious activities but failed to mention them to investigators until after the attack. Marquez was also reportedly linked to a planned 2012 terror plot that fell through.

“They say the system has all these fail-safes”, Salmon said.

When asked by the Senate panel whether a terrorist operative or group arranged the couple’s marriage, Comey stated: “I don’t know the answer to that yet”.

Officials caution that Marquez’s claim of a 2012 attack could turn out to be false and an attempt to deflect his role in helping buy weapons that Farook later used in the San Bernardino shootings last week.

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The FBI believes Farook had ties to a group of jihadists in California who were arrested in 2012 for attempted to travel to Afghanistan to join al Qaeda.

San Bernardino: Spotlight on next-door neighbor