ISIS claims responsibility: says California killers were their followers

(California Department of Motor Vehicles via AP). Neighbours named the man who lived there as Enrique Marquez and said he was often seen with Farook. Farook’s last communication with the contacts was months ago.

As the investigation into the motives behind Wednesday’s horrific mass shooting in San Bernardino continues to unfold, more information is being dug up about the personal history of the gunwoman, Tashfeen Malik. She started dressing more conservatively, wearing a scarf that covered almost all of her face, and became more devout in her Muslim faith, according to some who knew her in Pakistan.

Tashfeen Malik and her husband, Syed Rizwan Farook, burst into a holiday party for the environmental health department the latter worked for and opened fire this week.

On Saturday in an online broadcast in Arabic, Islamic State said the couple were its followers.

“Two followers of Islamic State attacked several days ago a center in San Bernadino in California”, the group’s daily online radio broadcast al-Bayan said on Saturday. They married in 2014 in Mecca, before Malik joined Farook in San Bernardino.

“The investigation so far has delivered indications of radicalization by the killers and of potential inspiration by foreign terrorist organisations”, Xinhua quoted Comey as saying. And neither one was on any list of potentially radicalized people.

It was not immediately clear if the apartment was still considered an active crime scene.

However Farook’s coworkers said he traveled to Saudi Arabia earlier this year and returned with a wife.

When asked about the media tour of the attackers’ house at the press conference, Bowdich said: “We executed a search warrant on that apartment and last night we turned that over back to the residents. She was a stay-at-home mom”, Abuershaid said. The card shows her date of birth as July 13, 1986. “I do not know what had happened to her. She brought a bad name to our family”, Batool said.

Farook’s family has said they were shocked and saddened by the attack.

Another person close to the Saudi government said Malik didn’t stay in Saudi Arabia, eventually returning to Pakistan and living in the capital, Islamabad, though she returned to Saudi Arabia for visits.

“We feel a lot of sadness but we also feel ashamed that someone from our family has done this”, he said.

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

“From what we heard, they lived differently, their mindset is different…. this is very shocking for us”, said school teacher Hifza Bibi, a step-sister of Malik’s father.

An Islamic State-affiliated news service called Malik and Farook “supporters” of its Islamist cause but stopped short of claiming responsibility for the attack.

The news agency said the woman spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of jeopardizing her employment with the family.

Malik is believed to have pledged allegiance to the group in a Facebook posting shortly before the shooting.

The mass shooting may have been inspired by ISIS, a law enforcement official said, but none of the officials said ISIS directed or ordered the attack.

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 man is not a suspect, officials have said.