California shooting investigated as act of terrorism

(California Department of Motor Vehicles via AP).

Dozens of members of the media stand in front of the home of shooting suspects Syed Farook and Tashfeen Malik on Friday. Farook’s last communication with the contacts was months ago.

The photo was first obtained by ABC News. A husband and wife opened fire on a holiday banquet, killing…

Flowers, candles and notes of mourning for victims are placed near the site of mass shooting in San Bernardino City, the United States, Dec. 4, 2015.

The FBI is now treating the San Bernardino shooting by a husband and wife that killed 14 and wounded 21 as an act of terrorism, an agency official said Friday.

The facility is reportedly a mile from the social service center where Syed Rizwan Farook and his wife, Tashfeen Malik, killed 14 people and injured 20 others.

A news source affiliated with ISIS, which is also known as Daesh, called Malik and Farook “supporters” of their cause.

However, FBI Director James Comey said in a separate news conference that the shooters were not part of a network. He also declined to rule out that future possibility.

The investigation so far indicates “potential inspiration by foreign terrorist organizations”, Comey told reporters.

But the phones have been retrieved and FBI investigators are extracting information from them, Bowdich said.

Comey added there “is a lot of evidence that doesn’t quite make sense” as officials begin their probe.

“As of today, based on the information and facts as we know them we are investigating this as an act of terrorism”, David Bowdich, the assistant F.B.I. director in charge of the Los Angeles office said at a press conference Friday. He would not elaborate.

The attorneys said the family was aware that Farook had guns but didn’t think much of that as he had acquired them legally and enjoyed target practice. Bowdich said crushed cell phones were found in a trash can near the residence.

“Digital media should lead us to motivation, which should lead us…to human intelligence”, he said.

Farook had no criminal record and was not under scrutiny by local or federal law enforcement before the attack, authorities said.

“The entire world is digging for information and the most we’ve gotten so far is somebody looked at something on Facebook”, Mr Chesley said.

Chesley and another attorney described Malik as a housewife who closely followed religious traditions.

Farook, who was born in the United States, and Malik were killed in a firefight with police hours after the attack, leaving investigators to comb through their belongings to try to determine a motive.

The holiday party was held for the county public health department, where Farook was an employee for about five years.

Law enforcement officials have long warned that Americans acting in sympathy with Islamic extremists – though not on direct orders – could launch an attack inside the U.S. Using slick propaganda, the Islamic State in particular has urged sympathizers worldwide to commit violence in their countries.

Others have done so. In May, just before he attacked a gathering in Texas of people drawing cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad, a Phoenix man tweeted his hope that Allah would view him as a holy warrior.

Seventy-one people have been charged in the USA since March 2014 in connection with supporting ISIS, including 56 this year, according to a recent report from the George Washington University Program on Extremism. The killings marked the worst mass shooting in the USA since the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre in Newtown, Conn.

Farook went to the Dar Al Uloom Al Islamiyah of America mosque in San Bernardino every day, but abruptly stopped coming three weeks ago.

He says family member had ever seen Farook with any of the weapons found at the townhouse.

“So the men did not interact with her”, he added, referring to Malik, who was born in Pakistan but grew up in Saudi Arabia.

Federal officials note that Farook had visited Saudi Arabia several times, including a trip in 2013 for the annual hajj, or pilgrimage, to Mecca that all Muslims are expected to complete at least once.

The executive spoke on condition of anonymity because this person was not allowed under corporate policy to be quoted by name.