Investigators believe the married couple who massacred 14 people in California last week had been radicalised “for quite some time”.
Investigators believe the married couple who massacred 14 people in California last week had been radicalised “for quite some time”. but no clues pointing to an international plot have yet emerged, the FBI said on Monday.
Authorities also have evidence that Syed Rizwan Fa-rook and his spouse Tash-feen Malik had engaged in firearms target practice near their Southern Califo-rnia home within days of last week’s deadly shooting rampage, according to the FBI.
Questions have been raised about the extent to which Farook, who was born in Illinois to Pakista-ni immigrant parents and grew up in Southern Calif-ornia, might have been introduced to extremism by Malik, whom he married in Saudi Arabia in the summer of 2014 before returning together to the US.
“The answer is we still do not know,” said David Bowdich, assistant director of the FBI’s Los Angeles office. But, he added, “We have learned and believe that both subjects were radicalised and had been for quite some time.”
Malik’s transformation began before she came to the US, according to the FBI. But Mr Bowdich said it remained to be seen whether the husband and wife were indoctrinated by other individuals or whether they turned to extremist ideology on their own.
