Twenty-one people were also wounded in the attack, the worst gun violence in the United States since the December 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut.
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Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Burbank), the ranking minority member on the House Intelligence Committee, told the Times he had been briefed on the investigation and federal agents have not turned up any evidence that Farook had been “radicalized”. The FBI said they found several shredded documents and two mobiles that had been destroyed.
After the shooting, Farook, 28, and Malik, 27, fled in a black SUV, police said.
And Bowdich said they may have been planning an additional attack. However, it was uncertain whether the comments were posted by Malik herself or someone with access to her page. He declined to elaborate on the material.
Bowdich confirmed that Malik had pledged allegiance to the Islamic State in a Facebook post and then deleted it before the shooting.
Aamaq, a news agency affiliated with the Islamic State (IS) group, says the San Bernardino shooters were “supporters” of the extremist group, though it stopped short of claiming responsibility for the attack.
“The investigation so far has developed indications of radicalization by the killers, and of potential inspiration by foreign terrorist organizations …”
But no evidence has been uncovered yet suggesting the killers were “part of an organized larger group, or form part of a cell”, Comey said. In particular, the networks were criticized for airing personal information about the shooters’ living relatives – including a driver’s license under the name Rafia Farook, who is Farook’s mother – potentially putting them at risk.
What might prove to be the most telling is the couple’s digital footprint, said David Bowdich, assistant director in charge of the Federal Bureau of Investigation in Los Angeles.
The Associated Press said Facebook discovered the account on Thursday. They said Farook reported meeting his future wife online.
She spoke broken English and her primary language was Urdu, he said, adding, “She was very conservative”.
Farook’s family knew that Farook kept locked, licensed handguns in his home, said the attorneys.
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. The couple had a 6-month-old daughter.
His friend Kuuleme Stephens said she heard him rowing with Farook two weeks ago.
“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.
CNN, quoting officials, said Farook had been in contact with known terror suspects overseas and had become radicalised after marrying Malik in Saudi Arabia a year ago, although an imam at a local mosque he attended said Farook showed no signs of that.
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Malik was a Pakistani citizen who had also lived in Saudi Arabia. When she was older, she likely moved back and forth between Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, according to a source close to the Saudi Arabian government.
