More details have emerged about San Bernardino attackers Syed Farook and Tashfeen Malik.
They began their relationship online and then met at the 2013 Hajj pilgrimage, according to a visa application.
According to Syed Farook’s fiancée visa application, he and Tashfeen Malik made contact on a website, emailed and then decided to meet.
Their parents met in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, during the annual pilgrimage.
Syed Farook and Tashfeen Malik got engaged the day their parents met and planned to marry within a month of Malik arriving in the US.
Photo AP
The US House Judiciary Committee has released visa documents, detailing Tashfeen Malik’s processing into the US, after some lawmakers criticized the progress.
Authorities say the two opened fire at a work luncheon for Syed Farook’s colleagues in the San Bernardino public health department on December 2, killing 14 people.
Hours later, police tracked the couple to their home, and they died in a shootout. The mass shooting was the deadliest terrorist attack in the US since 9/11.
Tashfeen Malik’s file has copies of her Saudi passport stamps and visas, along with a statement from Syed Farook detailing how they met and when they planned to marry.
Her visa issuance is still the subject of investigation. She was born in Pakistan but grew up in Saudi Arabia, returning to Pakistan to pursue a pharmacy degree at Bahauddin Zakariya University.
Tashfeen Malik, 29, pledged allegiance to ISIS on the day of the shooting.
Syed Farook, 28, had worked for the San Bernardino County Department of Public Health for five years and the couple had just had a baby. They left the child with its grandmother the day of the shooting.
He prayed daily at the Islamic Center of Riverside, California, but no one seemed to think he had extremist views.
Tashfeen Malik’s admission to the US has sparked debate among US lawmakers about immigration and visa processes.
Congressman Bob Goodlatte, a Virginia Republican, said immigration officials did not “thoroughly vet” Tashfeen Malik’s application.
He said the application did not show sufficient evidence the two had met in person, and that more evidence had been requested, but it was not provided and she still had her visa approved.
The State Department has said that “all required procedures were followed in the K-1 visa case for Ms Malik”.
Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik, who were behind the San Bernardino attack that killed 14 people last week, had target practice days before, the FBI has said.
Tashfeen Malik and husband Syed Farook visited ranges in the Los Angeles area, said David Bowdich, assistant director of the FBI’s Los Angeles office.
David Bowdich said both were radicalized and had been “for some time”.
The US is investigating last week’s attack, which happened at a health care centre, as an act of terrorism.
However, David Bowdich said there is no evidence yet that last week’s tragedy, the most deadly terror attack in the US since 9/11, was plotted from overseas.
The FBI did not have an investigation open on restaurant inspector Syed Farook before he and his wife opened fire on his colleagues at a work event at the Inland Regional Center.
They were both killed hours later in a shoot-out with police.
Investigators said they found 19 pipes that could have been turned into bombs at the couple’s apartment, rather than the 12 previously reported.
A photo obtained by ABC News shows the couple arriving at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport from Saudi Arabia in July 2014.
According to US officials, Syed Farook traveled to Saudi Arabia and returned about two weeks later with Tashfeen Malik, who was able to come to the country on a fiancé visa.
Syed Farook’s father told Italian newspaper La Stampa his son sympathized with ISIS and was fixated with Israel.
The family’s lawyer said he had recently told them co-workers had mocked his beard, and that the family knew he had two handguns and two rifles.
But they did not know about the arsenal of weapons the couple had amassed.
Tashfeen Malik reportedly praised ISIS on Facebook on the day of the attacks.
The Department of Justice said on December 7 it is monitoring any anti-Muslim sentiments or attacks that may emerge in the wake of the mass shooting.
Tashfeen Malik – the woman involved in San Bernardino deadly gun attack – pledged allegiance to ISIS leader on Facebook, US officials say.
She made the post under an account with a different name, the officials told US media.
Fourteen people were killed and 21 wounded in December 2 attack.
Tashfeen Malik, 27, and her husband Syed Rizwan Farook, 28, died in a shootout with police after the killings at San Bernardino, east of Los Angeles.
According to the New York Times, there was no evidence that ISIS had directed the couple in the attack.
“At this point we believe they were more self-radicalised and inspired by the group than actually told to do the shooting,” the newspaper quoted an official as saying.
Tashfeen Malik is reported to have posted the message on Facebook in support of ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. The post has since been removed.
On December 4, the couple’s landlord opened their apartment to the media, prompting journalists and camera crews to rush in and survey the scene.
After the attack at the Inland Regional Center social services agency, bomb equipment, weapons and thousands of rounds of ammunition were found in the couple’s home.
Tashfeen Malik and Syed Rizwan Farook had destroyed computer hard drives and other electronic equipment before the rampage took place, a US government source said on December 4.
Investigators are also said to be following up a report that Syed Rizwan Farook had argued with a colleague at work who denounced the “inherent dangers of Islam”.
Tashfeen Malik was born in Pakistan and had recently lived in Saudi Arabia.
Intelligence officials in Pakistan have contacted relatives there, a family member quoted by Reuters said.
Syed Farook, who worked as an inspector for San Bernardino’s environmental health department, was the son of Pakistani immigrants and born in the US state of Illinois.
Police said between 75 and 80 people were attending a party at the center when the shooting began.
The identities of the victims have since been released by San Bernardino’s coroner. The youngest was 26 and the oldest was 60.
San Bernardino is the deadliest mass shooting in the US since 26 people were killed at a school in Newtown, Connecticut in 2012.
Police have found bomb equipment, weapons and thousands of rounds of ammunition at San Bernardino shooters’ home.
The attackers killed 14 people and wounded 21 at San Bernardino’s Inland Regional Center in California.
Authorities still have not found a motive in the attack by Syed Rizwan Farook, 28, and Tashfeen Malik, 27.
According to police, the attack indicated there had been “some degree of planning”.
San Bernardino Police Chief Jarrod Burguan said it appeared that the duo was prepared to carry out another attack.
“There was obviously a mission here. We know that. We do not know why. We don’t know if this was the intended target or if there was something that triggered him to do this immediately,” said David Bowdich, assistant director of the FBI’s Los Angeles office.
In the shootout with police hours after the attack, Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik fired 76 rounds of ammunition at the officers and the officers fired 380 rounds back.
Two police officers were injured during the pursuit.
San Bernardino attack marks the deadliest mass shooting in the US since 26 people were killed at a school in Newtown, Connecticut in 2012.
Authorities are expected to start releasing the names of the victims on December 3.
President Barack Obama said the FBI had taken over the investigation from local authorities.
“It is possible that this was terrorist-related, but we don’t know. It’s also possible that this was workplace-related,” he said.
“We’re going to have to search ourselves as a society to make sure we can take basic steps that would make it harder – not impossible, but harder – for individuals to get access to weapons.”
Law enforcement officials are also looking at possible “co-conspirators” and have been in touch with the suspects’ relatives.
Syed Rizwan Farook, who was born in the US, was not “on the radar” of law enforcement, Jarrod Burguan said.
He worked for the past five years as a restaurant inspector for the San Bernardino County Health Department. The Los Angeles Times reported that co-workers said he was a devout Muslim but rarely discussed his religion.
He and Tashfeen Malik were recently married and had a six-month-old baby, who they dropped off at its grandmother’s house before the attack.
On December 2, Syed Rizwan Farook and his colleagues were attending a holiday party at the Inland Regional Center.
Co-worker Patrick Baccari said he was sitting at the same table as Syed Farook before he abruptly left, leaving his coat.
Wearing military-style clothing and armed with assault rifles and semi-automatic handguns, Syed Farook returned with Tashfeen Malik a short time later to open fire.
When the shooting started, Patrick Baccari took refuge in a bathroom and was hurt when shrapnel sliced through the wall.
Police have named two suspects killed after a mass shooting in San Bernardino, California, left 14 people dead at a social services center.
The man and woman, Syed Rizwan Farook, 28, and Tashfeen Malik, 27, were killed in an exchange of fire with police.
Syed Rizwan Farook had been a San Bernardino public health employee for five years, police chief Jarrod Burguan said.
The attack took place at an event on December 2 for Syed Rizwan Farook’s colleagues. None of the victims has been identified.
The Inland Regional Center, where the shooting took place, provides services for people with developmental disabilities, but the shooting appeared to be unrelated to its clients.
The incident marks the deadliest mass shooting in the US since 26 people were killed at a school in Newtown, Connecticut in 2012.
Jarrod Burguan, who said another 17 people were wounded, said police were “reasonably confident” that there were just two shooters.
A third person seen running from the scene was detained, but police said it was unclear whether that person was involved.
Both suspects were killed in their vehicle after a shoot-out with police involving 20 officers. A tip-off had earlier led police to a house in nearby Redlands.
The dead man and woman were believed to be a couple, the police chief said. They were armed with assault rifles and semi-automatic handguns and wore military-style clothing.
According to the US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), two of the four guns recovered were linked to “an individual associated with this investigation”. They are investigating the origin of the other two guns.
One police officer was injured, but his injuries are not life threatening.
Three possible explosive devices were found at the Inland Regional Center, where the shooting took place.
Jarrod Burguan said that Syed Rizwan Farook had left the event – which was possibly a holiday party for employees or a meeting – “under some circumstances that were described as angry,” and returned with Tashfeen Malik.
Earlier, the FBI said it was not ruling out the possibility of terrorism but the situation was still being investigated.
San Bernardino is a city of about 200,000 people, 60 miles east of Los Angeles.
The attack took place in a conference area where the San Bernardino County Department of Public Health was holding a social event, said Maybeth Field, the center’s president.
Syed Rizwan Farook, who was born in the US, worked for the county as an environmental health specialist, police said. They had no information on whether he had a criminal record, nor further details on Tashfeen Malik.
Colleagues told the Los Angeles Times that Syed Rizwan Farook had traveled to Saudi Arabia and returned with a new wife. The couple had a young baby, they said.
His brother-in-law, Farhan Khan, told a press conference he had “absolutely no idea” what could have prompted the shooting.
The mass shooting comes just days after three people were killed at a Colorado Planned Parenthood clinic.
President Barack Obama said in response to San Bernardino shooting: “One thing we do know is that we have a pattern of mass shootings in this country that has no parallel anywhere in the world.
“There are some steps that we could take, not to eliminate all incidents, but to make sure they happen less frequently.”
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