Californian shooter Syed Farook linked to terrorism suspects

A US-born Muslim who along with his wife gunned down 14 people had been in contact with known terror suspects.

A US-born Muslim who along with his wife gunned down 14 people in California may have been radicalised and had been in contact with known terrorism suspects.

The FBI, which has cautioned it is too early to link the attack to terrorism, has taken charge of the ­investigation into Thursday’s shooting at a Christmas party for county employees at a social services centre in San Bernardino.

Agents were combing through evidence to determine what prompted Syed Farook, 28, and his 27-year-old Pakistani wife Tashfeen Malik to carry out the rampage that wounded 21 people.

The New York Times said the FBI was treating the shooting as a potential terrorist act, but the agency was far from concluding it was and the motive was unclear.

CNN said Farook had been in contact with 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 mobile phones and the couple’s computer hard drive — had evidence Farook had communicated with extremists domestically and abroad a few years ago, the Times said, citing congressional officials briefed on the investigation.

President Barack Obama, who ordered flags to be flown at half-mast until Monday, said yesterday a terror ­attack could not be ruled out but cautioned against jumping to ­conclusions.

“At this stage, we do not yet know why the terrible event ­occurred,” said Mr Obama, who has repeatedly called on the ­Republican-controlled congress to pass tougher gun control measures. “It is possible that this was ­terrorist related, but we don’t know. It’s also possible that this was workplace-related.”

Some of the reasons pushing authorities to believe Thursday’s shooting may be terror-related ­included the astonishing arsenal the couple had amassed, their ­foreign travels, and the fact that they appeared to have metic­ulously planned the attack.

“There was obviously a mission here,” said FBI assistant director David Bowdich.

“We don’t know if this was the intended target or if there was something that triggered him to do this immediately.”

San Bernardino police chief Jarrod Burguan said Farook and his wife — who dropped off their six-month-old daughter with ­Farook’s mother shortly beforehand — fired about 150 bullets inside the Inland Regional Centre and during a subsequent shootout with police that left both dead, after a huge manhunt.

At the centre the couple left three rigged-together pipe bombs with a remote-control detonating device that apparently malfunctioned, and they had more than 1600 rounds of ammunition remaining when police killed them in their rented Ford SUV.

Mr Burguan said investigators had found a further 5000 rounds of ammunition at the couple’s home in Redlands a few kilometres away, along with 12 pipe bombs and bomb-making material. “Nobody just gets upset at a party, goes home and puts together that kind of elaborate scheme,” Mr Burguan said, referring to indications that Farook had attended the party and left following a dispute, only to return a short time later with Malik.

The duo were dressed in black military gear and carried assault weapons and semiautomatic handguns when they raided the party where about 80 people had gathered before lunchtime.

Authorities identified the victims as six women and eight men ranging in age from 26 to 60. All but two were county employees and colleagues of Farook, who worked as an environmental inspector for the health department.

Lieutenant Mike Madden, one of the first police officers to ­respond to the shooting, said he came upon a “surreal” scene on entering the building.

“It was unspeakable,” he said. “The carnage that we were seeing, the number of people who were injured and unfortunately already dead and the pure panic on the face of those individuals.”

Several vigils, including one at a local mosque, were held in San Bernardino yesterday. “This is a tragedy but we must show that we are not afraid,” said Dorothy ­Andrews, 74, who joined several thousand people who turned out at San Manuel Stadium.

Acquaintances said Farook did not seem to have extremist views and was living “the American dream” with his wife and baby. “He was married, he had a daughter and last year he made $US77,000,” said Gasser Shehata, 42, who attended the same mosque. “He had everything to be happy.”

Another worshipper at the Dar Al Uloom Al Islamiyah mosque said Farook used to pray there two to three times a week, but had not been seen for about three weeks.

American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee legal and policy director Abed Ayoub said there was fear there would be a backlash against the Muslim community.

AFP, AP