California shooters radicalized at least 2 years ago

“We’re also working very hard to understand whether there was anybody else involved with assisting them, with supporting them, with equipping them”.

However investigators have been looking into Farook’s ties with a longtime friend and neighbor, Enrique Marquez, suspected of purchasing two assault rifles used by the couple in their murderous rampage.

Marquez and Farook had a sister-in-law in common, according to the Associated Press.

That information showed similarities in how the San Bernardino shooters – Farook and Malik – and the four Inland Empire men arrested in 2012 and convicted a year ago in the unrelated case – planned and prepared for their attacks. It’s not clear why that plot did not go forward.

FBI says San Bernardino shooters were radicalized before dating each otherAnother aspect of the investigation into Marquez involves his November 2014 marriage.

Authorities are still seeking to corroborate what Marquez is telling them.

Speaking during a Senate hearing in Washington, Mr Comey characterised the couple as “homegrown violent extremists”, and said that precise nature of the foreign influence is still under investigation. She did not associate with Marquez outside of work, she said. He has not been charged or detained.

Syed Rizwan Farook and his wife Tashfeen Malik were also said to have discussed jihad and martyrdom as early as 2013 before Malik came to the USA on a fiancée visa. The FBI is investigating, Dina says.

The consular officer who did the interview reported that Malik was able to answer enough questions about Farook to prove that she knew him well and that they had a personal relationship, a main focus of the consular interview process, according to two senior State Department officials.

Malik declared allegiance to Daesh in a Facebook post around the time of the shooting last week, which led authorities to conclude that it was a terrorist attack. Marquez and Farook were friends for a long time and became relatives past year after Marquez married that woman’s sister.

The committee’s chairman, Republican Senator Charles Grassley, said the San Bernardino shootings had shown President Barack Obama to be “spectacularly wrong” about the security of the U.S. visa screening process since Malik arrived in the United States on a K-1 fiancee visa on which he said she listed a false address.

“But clearly”, he added, “we’re going to keep an open mind about the program going forward and make whatever changes we need to make”. Syed Farook, a US citizen, and his bride, Pakistani-born Tashfeen Malik, met online in 2013, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation reports they soon discussed violence, even before developing a cyber-romance relationship.

Marquez converted to Islam and attended mosque sermons on and off for a couple years, said Azmi Hasan, who has served as facility manager of the Islamic Society of Corona-Norco since 2000.

Malik married Farook the following month. On Monday, Pakistani intelligence authorities raided the home owned by her father in Multan, a city about 220 miles (350 kilometers) southwest of Lahore.

When questioned about why he wasn’t coming to sermons, Marquez would say he was busy, according to Hasan.

Lawmakers are also talking about tighter requirements to obtain a so-called fiancé visa such as Malik used to enter the country.

New clues also surfaced Wednesday about what the husband and wife team might have been planning.

Investigators continue to pour through documents and other evidence found inside their home, and now say the couple had been practicing at shooting ranges and likely plotting their attack for more than a year.

Farook had several pictures of a high school on his mobile phone suggesting it could have been considered as a target.