Early yesterday, authorities with guns drawn raided a home next door to the house where Farook’s family used to live in Riverside, California, breaking windows and using a cutting torch to get into the garage, neighbours said.
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The FBI announced Friday that it is investigating the mass shooting in Southern California as an act of terrorism, while a USA law enforcement official revealed that the woman who helped her husband carry out the attack had pledged allegiance to the Islamic State group and its leader on Facebook under an alias. It’s not known what connections she may have had with any terrorists or groups.
U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) chief James Comey said Friday that San Bernardino shooting was being investigated as potential terrorism, but there was “no indication” suggesting killers of the holiday party carnage had been part of any terrorist group.
Nothing, according to attorneys David Chesley and Mohammad Abuershaid, who represent Farook’s mother and three siblings. “They attempted to destroy their digital fingerprints and we found cell phones that were actually crushed in a nearby trash can”, Bowdich said. “We can’t jump to conclusions”.
The couple’s orphaned daughter is in the care of child protective services and the family will try to recover her next week.
Friends knew Farook by his quick smile, his devotion to Islam and his talk about restoring cars.
Following their deadly gun attack, the couple were themselves killed in a shootout with police.
In the days since the shooting, only sparse details have emerged about her life.
Tashfeen Malik, the Pakistani woman involved in the California mass shooting last week, may have influenced her American husband toward violence, said Representative Michael McCaul, chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, on Sunday. Both listed their religion as Muslim. Gen. Mansour Al-Turki told the AP that authorities there have received no indication Malik was radicalized in Saudi Arabia.
She started dressing more conservatively, wearing a scarf that covered almost all her face, and became more devout in her Muslim faith, according to some who knew her in Pakistan. She returned to Pakistan to attend college… She did return to Saudi Arabia for visits, including a nine-week stay in July 2008. Farook worked as an environmental health specialist for San Bernardino County for five years and had been at the party with his co-workers before returning with his wife and opening fire. His wife didn’t join him, he said.
Malik’s uncle Javed Rabbani, a clerk in the town’s education department, said he has not seen his brother in 30 years.
A relative of Malik’s in Pakistan, Hifza Batool, reported hearing similar things from other family members about Malik, her step-niece. “The members of [the Islamic State] will use every means within their power to attack our country”.
Via a Facebook post, Malik, a native Pakistani who came to this country on a fiancee visa, pledged allegiance to the Islamic State.
US officials said that Farook been in contact with extremists via social media, but one official said those contacts were not recent and did not involve any significant players on the FBI’s radar. Obama also briefed Hollande on the investigation into the shootings.
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Investigators say they had more than 1,600 bullets with them when they were killed and well over 4,500 rounds of ammunition at their home. “I believe on his salary, he was not able to buy this on his own”, said McCaul. Farook legally bought two handguns used in the massacre, and their two assault rifles were legally bought by someone else federal authorities want to question.
