San Bernardino Suspects Radicalized 2 Years Ago, May Have Planned Other Attacks

According to descriptions of those who know him, Mr. Marquez seemed an unremarkable figure drifting through life, somehow right into the fringes of radical Islam.

On December 2, US-born Syed Rizwan and his wife Tashfeen Malik, a Pakistani national and U.S. resident, shot dead 14 people at a San Bernardino County Department of Public Health function.

Last week’s massacre was the deadliest terrorist attack in the United States since 9/11.

Both of Farook’s parents have been placed on a federal watch list but his relatives are still fighting to gain custody of Farook and Malik’s 6-month-old daughter.

[Marquez and Chernykh] married in November 2014, with Raheel Farook and Tatiana acting as witnesses, documents show.

He said he gave a statement to Saudi intelligence and would not comment further. “It’s just mind boggling why they would do something like this”. According to ABC News, Marquez told FBI investigators that he and Farook plotted a terror attack in 2012, but called off the plans after a series of terror-related arrests in other cities.

Authorities raided Marquez’s house Saturday, and a makeshift sign in the yard was later added warning visitors to “keep off” the property.

“This visa has been totally under the radar”, Marc Rosenblum, deputy director of the U.S. Immigration Policy Program at the Migration Policy Center, explained to the Associated Press this week.

Marquez had a security guard license in California for several years, but it expired last year.

Marquez is a security guard at Wal-Mart. Raheel Farook is a Navy veteran, serving from 2003 to 2007 and earning the Global War on Terrorism Expeditionary Medal and the Global War on Terrorism Service Medal, among other awards.

Marquez’s family has declined to speak about the allegations against him.

“I can’t provide that information”, added Cartwight, who said federal law barred her from giving out any information about a former student.

But a friend of Marquez told ABC that at a party months ago, the glasses-wearing Walmart employee made a remark that in hindsight was prophetic.

“He just floated around”, he said. “He was a pretty laid-back guy”.

After the shooting, Mr Marquez called his mother to say he was safe but that he would not be coming home, neighbour Lorena Aguirre said. Two of the men were later found guilty, and two pleaded guilty.Marquez provided the military-grade rifles used during the San Bernardino attack. It’s unclear where he is now.

Neighbors of the Tomlinson Avenue homes where Marquez and Farook lived next door to one another recalled the two working on cars together but did not know whether their relationship extended beyond that shared interest.

The FBI believe the pair were inspired by Islamic State ideology but agents are still looking for other motivations and sources of radicalisation as the couple’s interest in extremism predates the group’s prominence. “I am in such pain that I can not even describe it”.

Malik’s father, Gulzar Ahmed Malik, told the New York Times that he met Farook’s mother during the annual hajj pilgrimage in the Saudi city of Mecca in July 2013.

Saudi Arabia is yet to share travel details of Tashfeen Malik, a Pakistani woman suspect in the California mass shooting, after it was conveyed that no passenger by that name had landed on Indian airports in and around the dates mentioned.

Earlier on Thursday, photos on Farook’s phone prompted a bomb sweep of some California schools.

Fortunately, Carter High School was searched by the authorities, and they didn’t find signs of any threats.