The FBI is investigating the massacre of 14 people in California by a married couple armed with assault rifles as an “act of terrorism”, officials said on Friday, noting the wife was believed to have pledged allegiance to a leader of the militant group Islamic State.
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Malik’s post was made on an account with a different name, one US official said. But the official said the contact was with “people who weren’t significant players on our radar”, dated back some time, and there was no immediate indication of any “surge” in communication ahead of the shooting. The company is reportedly cooperating with law enforcement.
When asked to explain possible motivations for the attack, Chesley said at a news conference Friday that co-workers made fun of Farook for his beard and said he was isolated with few friends. Malik married Farook, an American of Pakistani descent, in August 2014 and the couple had a baby daughter six months ago.
Law enforcement sources have said that material on the Facebook page included praise of the Islamic State.
“It just doesn’t make sense for these two to be able to act like some kind of Bonnie and Clyde or something”, Farook family attorney David S. Chesley told CNN’s Chris Cuomo. “It’s just ridiculous. It doesn’t add up”.
Farhan Khan also told NBC News he is beginning the legal process to adopt Farook’s 6-month-old daughter, who was dropped off with relatives Wednesday morning before the shooting that left 14 dead. Malik arrived on a visa for fiancees and with a Pakistani passport in July 2014, authorities said.
“The most evidence they have so far is that somebody looked at something on Facebook”, the lawyer said.
“There was nothing to show that (Malik) was extreme at all”, Abuershaid said.
Because the couple had accumulated so many ammunitions and tools to make bombs, Bernardino Police Chief Jarrod Burguan said, they could be in some degree of planning to attack.
Attorneys for the family of a California shooter are cautioning the public against rushing to judgment about terrorist connections to the attack.
David Bowdich, assistant director of the FBI’s Los Angeles office, said in Los Angeles on Friday that the shooters attempted to destroy evidence, including crushing two cellphones and discarding them in a trash can.
“The FBI defines terrorism very specifically”.
Neither Farook nor his wife had gotten into trouble with the law.
The brother-in-law of one of the attackers in San Bernardino, California, says Syed Farook was a ‘bad person, ‘ but he wasn’t radical. Some were by phone, some on social media.
Fellow mosque goers said Farook abruptly stopped going to pray three weeks ago.
The FBI wants to interview some of them to learn more about their conversations with Farook.
A federal official said Farook has “overseas communications and associations”, but it’s not yet clear how relevant they are to the shootings.
Authorities said they had not pinned down a motive, but were continuing to investigate all possibilities.
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Bowdich said that among other places, Farook had traveled to Pakistan, even though Abuershaid said “he never traveled to Pakistan”. “The religion of Islam is a attractive religion that would never… agree with any type of killing like this”.
