San Bernardino Shooter Pledged Allegiance to ISIL, Police Say

The mass shooting in California is being probed as “an act of terrorism”, the Federal Bureau of Investigation said late Friday as President Barack Obama insisted that the United States “will not be terrorised” and renewed his call for tighter gun control measures in a weekly address on Saturday.

If proven to be terrorism, it would be the deadliest attack by Islamic extremists on American soil since 9/11.

Comey says Syed Farook and Tashfeen Malik didn’t appear on the FBI’s “radar screen” before the shooting Wednesday that killed 14 in San Bernardino.

Tashfeen Malik and her husband, Syed Rizwan Farook, sprayed bullets at Farook’s co-workers at a holiday party for the environmental health department in San Bernardino before being gunned down in a shootout with authorities the same day.

FBI Director James Comey said Friday there was no indication so far that the couple was part of a larger cell or was directed by a foreign terror organization. Also, police are looking at the possibility that the shooting was tied to a workplace dispute.

“It is entirely possible that these two attackers were radicalized to commit this act of terror”, Obama said. But ISIS’ acknowledgment of Malik and Farook as supporters doesn’t mean they were members or that someone from the group ordered it, said retired Air Force Lt. Col. Rick Francona, a CNN military analyst and a former intelligence officer.

The U.S. officials and Facebook figure who discussed the couple’s online activity spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk about the matter publicly.

Mr Bowdich said he was not aware of the IS-affiliated Aamaq news service report but was not surprised IS would attempt to link itself to the attack.

The quantity of arms and ordnance discovered in the residence suggests the couple were planning more than one attack, Bowdich said.

On Friday morning, the property’s owner allowed reporters inside.

“It just doesn’t make sense for these two to be able to act like some kind of Bonnie and Clyde or something”, Farook’s family attorney David S. Chesley said.

Meanwhile, analysts were trying to retrieve data from two cellphones found nearby that had been crushed in an apparent attempt to destroy the information inside.

“We hope that will take us to their motivation”, Bowdich said.

Lawyers for Farook’s family urged the public not to rush to judgment.

“If the most evidence there is to any affiliation is a Facebook account under another person’s name … then that’s hardly anything at all”, Chesley said.

Lawyers for Farook’s mother and three siblings described Malik as “just a housewife” who was quiet like her husband and strictly followed Muslim custom. Officials have theorized she may have been the driving force behind the radicalization of Farook. The couple had a 6-month-old daughter, now in the care of social service authorities.

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.

Malik arrived in the U.S.in 2014 on a Pakistani passport and a fiancee visa but had spent extended periods of time in Saudi Arabia.

“At this point we believe they were more self-radicalized and inspired by the group than actually told to do the shooting”, one official was quoted as saying by the New York Times.

‘It’s remarkable to think there were upwards of 70-plus people in that room when this happened, ‘ Burguan said.

US Media reported that Farook was a US citizen and had worked at the Inland Regional Center for some five years.

The maid said Malik initially wore a scarf that covered her head but not her face.

Islamic State also claimed responsibility for a November 13 series of attacks in Paris in which gunmen and suicide bombers killed 130 people.