California shooter may be linked to ISIS

One of the two people accused of killing 14 at a holiday party in California apparently pledged allegiance to a leader of Islamic State (ISIS) militant group, two US government sources said on Friday.

Tashfeen Malik, 27, and her husband, Syed Rizwan Farook, 28, were killed in a shootout with police hours after the Wednesday massacre at the Inland Regional Center social services agency in San Bernardino, about 100 km east of Los Angeles. The attack was the deadliest mass shooting the United States has experienced in three years.

US investigators are evaluating evidence that Malik, a Pakistani native who had been living in Saudi Arabia when she married Farook, had pledged allegiance to ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, two US officials told Reuters. They said the finding, if confirmed, could be a “game changer” in the investigation.

Pakistani intelligence officials have contacted Malik’s family in her homeland as part of the investigation, a family member said.

“I only found out about this tragedy today when some intelligence officials contacted me to ask me about my linkswith Tashfeen,” Malik’s uncle, Javed Rabbani, said in aninterview. “I had heard in the news that this tragedy had taken place but I could never even imagine that it would be someonefrom my family. Of course, we are in shock.”

Malik and Farook had also spent time destroying computer hard drives and other electronics before embarking on their rampage Wednesday, a US government source said.

Investigators are looking into a report that Farook had engaged in an argument with a co-worker who denounced the “inherent dangers of Islam,” a US government source said.

Tashfeen Malik had moved back to Pakistan five or six years ago to study pharmacy, Pakistani officials said.

CNN reported on Friday that one US official said Malik had pledged allegiance to al-Baghdadi in a posting on Facebook made on Wednesday, the day of the attack, under an account that used a different name. The attack appeared to be inspired by, but not necessarily directed by ISIS, CNN reported, citing unnamed sources.

Earlier, the FBI, which has cautioned it was too early to link the attack to terrorism, has taken charge of the investigation into Wednesday’s mass shooting in San Bernardino.

CNN, quoting officials, said Farook had been in contact with known terror suspects overseas and had become radicalised after marrying Malik in Saudi Arabia last year, although an imam at a local mosque he attended said Farook showed no signs of that.

The FBI — who were scouring cell phones and a computer hard drive of the couple — had evidence that Farook had communicated with extremists domestically and abroad a few years ago, the Times said, citing congressional officials briefed on the investigation.

Quoting a senior federal government official, the Los Angeles Times said Farook was in contact with a small number of suspected extremists. This official was also quoted as saying there are indications he communicated with at least one person being monitored as a potential terror suspect.

Farook’s connection to that person may only be tangential, the source said, but the link suggests there may be a “deeper terror matrix” behind the California shootings, the official said.

Up to 3,000 people attended a vigil Thursday evening in honour of the victims.