She wrote of love for ISIS, then killed 14
FBi: Wife’s online post shows terror link phoned ‘other targets’ of feds’ probe
THE WIFE in the terror tag-team behind a California mass shooting issued a pledge of allegiance to ISIS just minutes before the couple blasted a roomful of holiday revelers.
The Facebook post from Tashfeen Malik came at about 11 a.m. Wednesday, roughly the same time the Pakistani immigrant and her American-born husband murdered 14 helpless victims and wounded 21 more, FBI officials said Friday.
Malik used an alias to direct her laudatory message to Islamic State kingpin Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, although it appeared there was no response from the terrorist leader to her cyber-shoutout.
The first photo of Malik — obtained by ABC News — was released Friday. It shows the woman with her head covered in a hijab.
Malik’s sister-in-law, Saira Khan, said she was shocked by what the pair had done.
“We didn’t know she had any kind of relations with ISIS or anything like that,” Kahn (photo, below) told MSNBC.
David Bowdich, head of the FBI’s Los Angeles office, confirmed the Facebook post and declared the mass shooting an act of terrorism. His agency is now leading the investigation into the carnage.
“There’s a number of pieces of evidence that essentially pushed us off the cliff to say we’re investigating this as a terrorist event,” Bowdich said.
Husband Syed Farook and his wife made telephone calls with “other targets of our investigation,” the federal agent added without detail.
The Los Angeles Times reported Farook had contact with two foreign terror groups — the Nusra Front in Syria and Al Shabab in Somalia. Bowdich confirmed there were contacts made domestically as well.
Malik’s incriminating Facebook message was taken down Thursday, and company officials said they were cooperating with law enforcement.
“If you met her she was like the girl next door,” Kahn said. “You would never, ever guess that that girl would have ties to ISIS.”
Farook and his spouse were identified Friday as “supporters” of the Islamic State by the ISIS-affiliated Aamaq news agency. The report claimed no responsibility for the nation’s 355th mass shooting of the year.
FBI Director James Comey — who said the married murderers were never under federal or local investigation before the killings — added that Malik and Farook apparently acted alone.
There was no evidence the two devout Muslims were part of a larger terror cell, according to Comey. But other key evidence was recovered as the FBI scoured the couple’s home.
Two crushed cell phones belonging to the pair were pulled from a trash can near their rented Redlands, Calif., townhouse, and could become “the golden nugget” of the probe going forward, Bowdich said. Thumb drives and computers belonging to the couple were also recovered, with much of the information shipped back to FBI labs in Washington.
“Digital media should lead us to motivation, which should lead us . . . to human intelligence,” he said. The couple tried to destroy and dispose of the evidence before the shooting spree.
The pair were also using the garage of their home as a bomb-making facility, according to an NBC News report. In a particularly macabre twist, investigators found a string of Christmas lights set aside for use as detonators, according to court papers.
Media members allowed in the residence Friday afternoon found a mix of items from the dead couple’s past: a Koran, a computer, boxes of diapers.
There remained no explanation for why the radicalized Muslim couple left their 6-monthold daughter with her grandmother, donned black military-style outfits and sprayed 75 rounds of assault rifle fire across a room of Farook’s colleagues.
San Bernardino officials started an online fundraising campaign Friday that raised nearly $15,000 to support victims and their families.
Farook, 28, had no criminal record and had worked anonymously for five years as a restaurant inspector with the San Bernardino County health department before shooting up the party.
Yearbook photos from Farook’s sophomore year in high school captured a seriouslooking 16-year-old staring into the camera.
Witnesses said Farook was there for the start of the holiday bash but bolted after an argument, picking up his wife in a rented black Ford Expedition SUV before the two returned to the Inland Regional Center.
Federal officials were already investigating whether Malik radicalized her husband after their marriage. It was also possible the two turned homicidal after reading online information increasingly provided by the terrorists as a recruiting tool.
A recent report from the George Washington University Program on Extremism noted that 71 suspects were charged with supporting ISIS in the United States since March 2014 — including 56 so far this year. Most are men, the report noted, but “women are taking an increasingly prominent role”
Farook and Malik were killed in a fusillade of police gunfire during a firefight just four hours after Wednesday’s attack. The two
sides swapped more than 400 bullets, with two police officers wounded. Twenty-three law enforcers were involved and blew out the windows and wheels of the fleeing SUV.
Bowdich confirmed that authorities had identified the man who legally bought the assault rifles used in the mass shooting.
“There is a person, that we know of his location, who purchased those weapons,” Bowdich said. “The person is not under arrest at this time.”
Authorities suspect the heavily armed couple were plotting a second attack prior to their deaths. “It’s certainly a possibility that we are looking at,” said Bowdich, noting the couple’s massive arsenal.
Late Friday, UPS workers left a San Bernardino facility after a package was found addressed to the suspects’ home. A police bomb technician was sent in to investigate the package just to be “safe,” the San Bernardino police chief tweeted.
The slain husband made a pilgrimage to Mecca in Saudi Arabia two years ago, and traveled last year to Pakistan — returning home with his wife, authorities said. She was here legally on what’s commonly known as a “fiancée visa.” Friends had indicated the two were married in Mecca, although they had a California marriage license dated Aug. 16, 2014.
Malik moved to Saudi Arabia with her family as a child, later returning to her native Pakistan.
On Friday, Farook family lawyers described her as a soft-spoken housewife, who wore a veil and didn’t drive. Their daughter was in the custody of child protective services, as Farook’s brotherin-law tried to adopt the baby.