California shooting probe widens to Pakistan

Shooters’ phone records now off-limits to FBI investigators

The FBI’s wide-ranging terror pro-be into the grisly mass shooting in California by a Pakistani woman and her husband that claimed 14 lives has expanded to Pakistan and other countries as concerns over radicalisation mount in the US. “Pakistan is one of those countries, there are other countries also involved...,” Loretta Lyn-ch, US attorney-general said on Sunday.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation is leading the probe into the killing by Pakistani national Tashfeen Malik, and her husband, Syed Rizwan Farook, of Pakistan-origin on Wednesday.

“This investigation is ongoing. It’s wide ranging, It’s very complex. ... This is an FBI investigation now because of the indications that we do have of radicalisation. This is a terrorism investigation at this point in time,” Ms Lynch said. “We’re all sort of really focusing on the victims of this horrific attack,” the US attorney said adding that in the four days since the attack took place, investigating authorities have done more than 300 interviews and have searched several locations.

In a major setback, the calling records of the couple is now off-limits to agents running the FBI investigation even with a warrant as the National Security Agency’s controversial mass surveillance program has formally been shut down. Instead, under the new USA Freedom Act, authorities were able to obtain roughly two years’ worth of calling records directly from the phone companies of the married couple blamed in the attack.

Malik attended one of Pakistan’s most high-profile religious seminaries for women. She was enro-lled in 2013 at the Al-Huda Institute in Multan, whi-ch targets middle-class women seeking to come closer to Islam and also has offices in the US, the UAE, India and the UK, said Imran Amir, an administration official at the seminary. The institute has no known extre-mist links, though it has come under fire in the past from critics who say its ideology echoes that of the Taliban.

Meanwhile, Farook’s fat-her said his son approved the ideas of ISIS and was fixated with Israel. “He said he agreed with al-Baghdadi’s ideas for creating the Islamic State, and he was obsessed by Israel,” La Stampa, an Italian daily, quoted the father of the shooter as saying.