The FBI said late Friday it was probing the attack as “an act of terrorism” after reports that Malik had pledged allegiance to IS on Facebook.
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Malik posted a message on Facebook pledging allegiance to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, leader of the terrorist group Islamic State, Mr. Comey said.
Saira Khan, Farook’s sister and Tashfeen Malik’s sister-in-law, told ABC News she and her husband, Farhan Khan, could give the orphaned baby “a stable upbringing”.
The killers, Syed Rizwan Farook and his wife, Tashfeen Malik, tried to cover their tracks. The Al-Bayan report Saturday echoed a claim carried Friday by the IS-affiliated Aamaq news agency. He also declined to rule out that future possibility. “There was nothing to characterize to make him act in this manner”, Chelsey said. He would not elaborate.
The quantity of arms and ordnance discovered in the residence suggests the couple were planning more than one attack, Bowdich said.
A Facebook Inc (FB.O) spokesman said the profile in question was removed by the company on Thursday for violating its community standards barring promotion or praise for “acts of terror”. “I’ve checked out a Britney Spears post and I hate Britney Spears”. He said investigators were looking carefully to determine if there is an IS connection.
Lawyers for Farook’s family urged the public not to rush to judgment.
But one thing both attorneys were adamantly clear on was that the media is jumping to conclusions about terrorism because the suspects happen to be Muslim.
A federal official who spoke to The New York Times on condition of anonymity earlier Friday said, “At this point we believe they were more self-radicalized and inspired by the group than actually told to do the shooting”.
Farook had no criminal record and neither he nor his wife was under scrutiny by local or federal law enforcement before the attack, authorities said.
Farook was born in the U.S., Burguan said, and had been working with the county for five years. Overnight, police released the identities of all 14 people killed in the attack, overnight.
If Wednesday’s mass shooting proves to have been the work of people inspired by Islamist militants, as investigators now suspect, it would mark the deadliest such attack in the United States since the 2001 September 11th attacks.
Saira and other family members have expressed their condolences to all the families of the 14 people who lost their lives.
Olivia Bozek, a deputy with the San Bernardino Sheriff’s Department, said that the home was still an active crime scene. They knew that Farook had two handguns, according to the attorneys, but they never saw these either as they were said to be kept under lock and key.
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To receive her visa, Malik was subjected to a vetting process the USA government describes as vigorous. 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.
