Female San Bernardino Shooter Reportedly Pledged Allegiance to ISIS Before Attack
The rampage left 14 dead during a holiday party.
Multiple media outlets report that 27-year-old Tashfeen Malik pledged allegiance in a Facebook post to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of ISIS, the day that she and husband Syed Rizwan Farook shot and killed 14 people during a holiday party at a social services center in San Bernardino, California.
Citing three U.S. officials “familiar with the investigation,” CNN’s Jim Sciutto reports Malik, wife of San Bernardino attacker Syed Farook and his apparent partner in the attack, appeared to make the post the day of the assault, though how she did so was unclear. Two U.S. officials told Reuters that the finding, if confirmed could be a “game changer” for the investigation into the attack.
This revelation comes just a day after reports — such as this one, from NBC — indicating Syed Farook was indeed radicalized at some point prior to the massacre:
Authorities told NBC News on Thursday that Farook appeared to have been radicalized. They said he had been in touch with people in the Los Angeles area who have expressed jihadi-oriented views.
Intelligence sources told NBC News that Farook appeared to have been in some form of communication with people overseas who are persons of interest to U.S. authorities.
Investigators are still trying to piece together a full picture of how Farook, a U.S. citizen, and Malik, a Pakistani national, came to plan and execute their horrific rampage at the Inland Regional Center social services agency.
While an FBI official quoted by CNN said it would be “premature” to call the mass shooting “terrorism,” the mounting evidence of an organized attack done with considerable planning and using techniques at least inspired by ISIS is impossible to ignore.
Photos by KTTV via the AP
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