Obama informs PM Nawaz of California shooter's links with Lal Masjid
Tashfeen had posted a message in favour of IS leader Abu Bakar Baghdadi.
LONDON (Dunya News/AFP) – US President Barack Obama on Saturday informed Prime Minister (PM) Nawaz Sharif about the California shooter Tashfeen Malik’s links with Pakistan s Lal Masjid and the Islamic State (IS). The message was delivered to PM Nawaz in London.
Prior to the shooting incident, shooter Rizwan Farooq’s wife Tashfeen had posted a message through a separate Facebook account, pledging allegiance to an extremist group Dolat-e-Islamia’s leader.
According to US officials, Tashfeen involved in mass shooting incident in a disability centre in San Bernardino area of California, had also posted a message in favour of IS leader Abu Bakar Baghdadi which was later removed.
Sources say that US officials have found pictures of Malik with Maulana Abdul Aziz. In the latest developments it has also been revealed that the shooter Tashfeen belonged to Pakistan’s district of Karor Lal Esan in Layyah.
Meanwhile the Spokesperson for the Foreign Office stated that the US government had not yet contacted Pakistan’s government for any information on Tashfeen.
President Barack Obama, who ordered flags to be flown at half-staff until Monday, had earlier said that a terror attack could not be ruled out. The mass shooting is now being investigated as "an act of terrorism.”
A US-born Muslim Syed Farook, 28 and his wife Tashfeen Malik, 27 gunned down 14 people and wounding 21 in San Bernardino area of California earlier this week. The attack was the deadliest mass shooting in the United States since the 2012 assault on an elementary school in Connecticut that left 26 people dead, including 20 children. The couple was killed in a firefight with police hours after the attack leaving investigators to comb through their belongings to try to determine a motive.
US news agency New York Times has stated that no such evidence has yet been found which might suggest that the couple had conducted the attack on the directions of the extremist group Dolat-e-Islamia, however the couple may have been inspired by the extremist organizations.
"At this point we believe they were more self-radicalized and inspired by the group than actually told to do the shooting," one official was quoted as saying by the New York Times.
A pro-IS news agency, Aamaq, on Friday said the mass shooting was carried out by sympathizers of the radical group
The IS group has encouraged supporters in the United States and elsewhere to carry out lone wolf attacks.
Mind-boggling
Relatives of Farook and Malik were at a loss to explain how the couple, who had a baby girl and seemed to be living the "American dream," could have committed mass murder.
"I can never imagine my brother or my sister-in-law doing something like this. Especially because they were happily married, they had a beautiful six-month-old daughter," Farook s sister Saira Khan told CBS News.
"It s just mind-boggling why they would do something like this."
One of Farook s colleagues said he was convinced Malik had radicalized her husband after they met online and married in Saudi Arabia last year.
"I think he married a terrorist," Christian Nwadike told CBS News. "He was set up through that marriage."
There were reports that Farook may have snapped at his office party following a religious discussion that got out of hand.
One witness said he suddenly stormed out of the event, leaving his jacket on his seat, and returned a short while later heavily armed, dressed in black military-style gear and a mask -- and accompanied by his wife.
An explosive device was later found at the scene of the shooting, but failed to go off.
Reporters in apartment
The landlord of the couple s rented townhouse on Friday opened their home up to reporters and the public who flooded in, taking pictures and videos in a surreal scene.
Toys could be seen inside the home along with a driver s license, pictures and letters scattered on one bed.
Investigators had found thousands of rounds of ammunition at the home, as well as a makeshift bomb-making laboratory and 12 pipe bomb-like devices.
Not afraid
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 New York Times said.
One lawyer for the couple s family said links between Farook and potential terror suspects were "tenuous" at best.
"We ve met with the FBI and, you know, someone has alluded to the fact that they found something on his computer," one lawyer, David Chesley, told CNN.
"He may have talked to somebody who talked to -- or spoken with somebody on the computer who viewed something about ISIS, but it s like, it s so tenuous, there s nothing really there."
Authorities identified the couple s victims as six women and eight men ranging in age from 26 to 60. All but two were county employees and colleagues of Farook.
