The Islamic State (IS) yesterday said that a married couple who killed 14 people in California in an attack the US FBI is investigating as an “act of terrorism” were followers of the militant group based in Syria and Iraq.
The group’s declaration in an online radio broadcast comes three days after US-born Syed Farook, 28, and his wife, Tashfeen Malik, 27, a native of Pakistan, carried out the attack on a holiday party for civil servants in San Bernardino, about 100km east of Los Angeles.
The two died hours later in a shootout with police.
US government sources have said Malik and her husband might have been inspired by the Islamic State, but there was no evidence the attack was directed by the militant group or that the organization even knew who they were. The party the couple attacked was for workers in the same local government agency that employed Farook.
If Wednesday’s mass shooting proves to have been the work of people inspired by Muslim militants, as investigators now suspect, it would mark the deadliest such attack in the US since Sept. 11, 2001.
“Two followers of Islamic State attacked several days ago a center in San Bernardino in California,” the group’s daily online radio broadcast al-Bayan said yesterday.
The broadcast came a day after Facebook Inc confirmed that comments praising the Islamic State were posted at about the time of the mass shooting to an account on the social media Web site established by Malik under an alias.
However, it was uncertain whether the comments were posted by Malik or someone with access to her account.
“I know it was in a general timeline where that post was made, and yes, there was a pledge of allegiance,” FBI Los Angeles office assistant director David Bowdich told a news conference about a reported loyalty pledge posted on Facebook by Malik on the day of the attack.
A Facebook 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.” He declined to elaborate on the material.
CNN and other media outlets reported that the Facebook posts on Malik’s page included a pledge of allegiance to Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.
FBI officials said mounting signs of advanced preparations, the large cache of armaments amassed by the couple and evidence that they “attempted to destroy their digital fingerprints” helped tip the balance of the investigation.
“Based on the information and the facts as we know them, we are now investigating these horrific acts as an act of terrorism,” Bowdich told reporters.
He said the FBI hoped examination of data retrieved from two smashed cellphones and other electronic devices seized in the investigation would lead to a motive for the attack.
The couple had two assault-style rifles, two semi-automatic handguns, 6,100 rounds of ammunition and 12 pipe bombs in their home or with them when they were killed, officials said.
They might have been planning an additional attack, Bowdich said.
Speaking to reporters separately in Washington on Friday, FBI Director James Comey said the investigation pointed to “radicalization of the killers and of potential inspiration by foreign terrorist organizations.”
However, no evidence has been uncovered yet suggesting the killers were “part of an organized larger group, or form part of a cell,” Comey said. “There is no indication that they are part of a network.”
Bowdich said neither Farook nor Malik had been under investigation by the FBI or any other law enforcement agency prior to Wednesday.
And none of the contacts federal agents have since discovered between the couple and the subjects of other FBI inquiries “were of such a significance that it raised these killers up onto our radar screen,” Comey said.
Citing an unnamed federal law enforcement official, the Los Angeles Times reported late on Friday that Farook had “some kind” of contact with people from the Nusra Front and the radical al-Shabaab group in Somalia. However, the nature of that contact and with whom was unclear, the Times said.
US President Barack Obama yesterday vowed in his weekly radio address that federal investigators would find out what motivated the married couple to attack.
“We are strong, and we are resilient, and we will not be terrorized,” Obama said.
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