San Bernardino shooting: Barack Obama says ‘entirely possible’ attackers were

“Two followers of Islamic State attacked several days ago a centre in San Bernadino in California”, the group’s daily broadcast al-Bayan said. Farook worked as an environmental health specialist for San Bernardino County for five years and had been at the party with his co-workers before leaving and returning with his wife, four guns and a bomb.

The terrorists made the statement on their official radio station on Saturday, CNN informs.

For an aunt in Malik’s old hometown of Pakistan, Malik’s growing religious focus was one of the last things the aunt heard about her 29-year-old niece – before last week, when the relative learned that her niece and her niece’s husband had donned face masks, hoisted assault rifles and killed 14 people in a rampage in California. 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.

Officials are still investigating the motives behind the attack, but sources told multiple news agencies that Malik pledged allegiance to the leader of ISIS on Facebook just before carrying it out.

Weapons found at the home of Syed Farook and his wife Tashfeen Malik after their deaths (AFP).

On Friday, the Federal Bureau of Investigation said it is beginning to investigate the shooting as an “act of terrorism” as it was revealed Malik had pledged allegiance to Isis in a now-deleted Facebook post.

The FBI said Farook legally bought the two handguns used in the attack – purchases that would have required a background check.

Susan Rice, Obama’s national security adviser, said the case illustrates the difficulties in detecting self-radicalized attackers.

Malik’s ISIS post was taken down by Facebook as per the company’s policy, which doesn’t allow any posts that “support or glorify” terrorism, a spokesman reportedly said. “We think that she had a lot to do with the radicalisation process and perhaps with Mr. Farook’s radicalisation from within in the United States”.

FBI Director James Comey said, however, that there was no indication the couple were “part of an organized larger group or part of a cell”. Her father cut off contact with his family after a feud over inheritance, they told Reuters, and moved to Saudi Arabia when his daughter was a toddler.

For some of those who did know her, including an aunt who spoke to The Associated Press, knowledge of some aspects of Malik’s life were limited to what other family members had told them.

The FBI said he went to Pakistan as well, but the family attorneys denied that.

Investigators are exploring Farook’s communications with at least one person who was under investigation for possible terror connections.

When officials investigated Malik and Farook’s home, they discovered “12 completed pipe bombs and a stockpile of thousands of rounds of ammunition”, the New York Times reports.