The second time, he went to marry Malik, whom he’d met through an online dating service, family attorney Mohammad Abuershaid said. In at least one occasion, he said, the target practice occurred within days of the shooting.
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Investigators still don’t have any hard evidence that Malik radicalized her husband or vice versa, or whether they came to a meeting of the minds together.
Officials around the world today are urgently trying to track the backgrounds and contacts of the newly-married parents of a baby girl who killed 14 people in California last week in a suspected ISIS-inspired attack, as a new photograph emerged showing the future terrorists entering the USA together for the first time past year.
John D’Angelo, a special agent for the US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, confirmed that the two rifles used in the attack were purchased by an individual named Enrique Marquez, described by several of his neighbors as having been a good friend of Farook.
Hospital personnel scrambled to be sure there were enough ventilators, blood supply and other life-saving necessities as rumors swirled about the number of dead and wounded, Gnanadev said.
Mr Bowdich said evidence of pre-planning appeared to suggest Farook, 28, and Malik, 29, had been radicalised for “quite some time”.
Authorities said that they have tightened security at county buildings and that counseling centers and a hotline have been set up for employees in distress.
In a primetime address to the nation on Sunday night, Obama zeroed in on the weapons and called for increased restrictions to keep them out of the hands of would-be shooters. Malik and Farook attempted to destroy two cell phones during the attack, but investigators discovered them in a dumpster near their house.
The official close to the case said that the elder Farook came to the U.S.in 1972.
They “were radicalized and have been for quite some time”, said David Bowdich, assistant director of the FBI’s Los Angeles field office.
Earlier the founder of an Islamic religious school organisation in Pakistan where Malik studied insisted the group is non-political and has no links to extremists.
The school is for women-only with locations across Pakistan and in the U.S. and Canada. “We can not be held responsible for personal acts of any of our students”.
“The Islamic State 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”. “Until we are able to determine and understand this problem and the unsafe threat it poses, our country can not be the victims of horrendous attacks by people that believe only in Jihad”, he said. It has, however, urged sympathizers to carry out attacks on their own.
SAN BERNARDINO, Calif. (AP) – Thousands of employees of San Bernardino County began returning to work Monday, five days after a county restaurant inspector and his wife opened fire on a gathering of his co-workers.
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Also speaking at Monday’s news conference was County Public Health Director Trudy Raymundo and Department of Environmental Health Services Division Chief Corwin Porter, who were among those who attended the holiday party that was attacked.
