In another chilling twist, authorities disclosed that a year before the rampage, Farook’s co-workers at the county health department underwent “active-shooter” training in the very conference room where he and his wife opened fire on his colleagues.
Advertisement
The assistant director of the FBI in Los Angeles, David Bowdich, told a press conference that the investigation aims to discover how the radicalization occurred and if it was encouraged by “anyone outside the U.S”.
Bowdich said investigators are unsure how the couple was radicalized, who radicalized them, and at what point.
Bowdich says they found 19 pipes in the couple’s home in Redlands, California, that could be turned into bombs with all the right components. The couple were killed in a furious shootout with police hours later.
Intelligence sources said Malik posted a statement of allegiance to ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi just before the killing began, and an ISIS online radio broadcast said Farook and Malik were ISIS supporters.
The shooting took place at a conference room where about 80 county environmental health employees were gathered for a training session and holiday celebration. But he said investigators are still trying to establish when, where and by whom they were influenced. “I have no idea why he would do something like this”, Farook’s brother-in-law Farhan Khan told reporters.
ISIS has praised the California attackers – husband and wife Syed Farook and Tashfeen Malik – as “soldiers” of its self-proclaimed caliphate, while stopping short of claiming outright credit for the carnage.
Investigators are in a frantic race to track down acquaintances and contacts of the two married terrorists who killed 14 people in California last week in a bid to stop other potential attacks. “We can’t be afraid of our lives, of our community, of our neighbours, of our co-workers”.
Under the tightened security protocols at county buildings, some security guards who had previously been allowed only to observe and report incidents are now authorized to carry firearms and “engage and detain” assailants, James Ramos, chairman of the San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors, said. Its founder has been criticized for promoting a conservative strain of Islam but the school has no known links to extremists.
Crisis counselling teams were reaching out to families of those killed and wounded on December 2 in the fusillade from U.S.-born Syed Rizwan Farook, 28, and his Pakistani wife, Tashfeen Malik, 29. “I ask that you come together and hold each other strong because it is the strength that will help us heal”. “Until we are able to determine and understand this problem and the risky threat it poses, our country can not be the victims of horrendous attacks by people that believe only in Jihad”, he said.
The FBI said last week that several factors are leading it to believe the attack was planned, which puts it more in the realm of a terrorist attack.
Advertisement
Mourners comforted one another Monday near a makeshift street-corner memorial in San Bernardino, where people put up rows of American flags and candles, alongside bouquets, balloons and cards.
