Obama vows to defeat IS
WASHINGTON, D.C. (AFP) — President Barack Obama made a rare primetime address to the nation Sunday laying out how he will keep Americans safe and defeat the Islamic State group, days after 14 people were shot dead in California.
Obama declared Saturday (yesterday in Manila) that the United States “will not be terrorized,” as IS praised the couple behind a mass shooting in San Bernardino as “soldiers” of its selfproclaimed caliphate.
“We are Americans. We will uphold our values – a free and open society,” Obama said in his weekly radio address.
Investigators are combing over evidence and looking in the backgrounds of Syed Farook, 28, and his 29year-old Pakistani wife Tashfeen Malik, the couple who opened fire at a social services center during a holiday party on Wednesday.
The FBI said federal agents raided a property in Riverside, California, but declined to provide the address.
NBC News reported that the FBI had searched the
home of Enrique Marquez, a friend of Farook’s who originally bought the assault rifles used in the shooting but who is not considered a suspect.
In his primetime address from the Oval Office on Sunday at 8:00 pm (0100 GMT), Obama will look to reassure the American people in the wake of the attack, which the FBI is investigating as a possible act of terrorism.
The massacre, if proven to be terror-related, would be the deadliest such assault on American soil since the September 11, 2001 attacks.
The last time Obama gave such an address was in August 2010 to mark the end of US combat operations in Iraq.
Obama will provide an update on the investigation into the shootings and “will also discuss the broader threat of terrorism, including the nature of the threat, how it has evolved, and how we will defeat it,” a White House statement said.
“He will reiterate his firm conviction that ISIL (IS) will be destroyed and that the United States must draw upon our values -- our unwavering commitment to justice, equality and freedom – to prevail over terrorist groups that use violence to advance a destructive ideology.”
Top security officials have indicated that the duo had been radicalized but the White House and the FBI say there are no signs that they were part of a larger group or terrorist cell.
However, in a radio broadcast in English, IS praised the couple as “soldiers of the caliphate” and martyrs, but did not specifically say they were members of the extremist group.
The shooting was the worst in the United States in three years and also again revived impassioned debate on gun control, in a country where such mass killings have become routine.