California shooting investigated as ''act of terrorism'': FBI

Washington, December 5

The California massacre is being probed as an act of terrorism, the FBI has said amid reports that the Pakistani woman who carried out the assault with her Pakistani-American husband had pledged allegiance to the Islamic State and its leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi on Facebook.

“This is now a federal terrorism investigation, led by the FBI. The reason for that is that the investigation so far has developed indications of radicalisation by the killers and of potential inspiration by foreign terrorist organisations,” FBI Director James Comey told reporters during a joint news conference with the US Attorney General Loretta E Lynch.

The agency's director has however said there is no indication yet that the couple -- Syed Rizwan Farook, 28, and his wife Tashfeen Malik, 27 -- who killed 14 people at San Bernardino were part of a larger plot or members of a terror cell.

"There's no indication that they are part of a network.

Again, it is early. We're still working very hard to understand. But I wanted you to know that so far we don't see such indications," Comey asserted.

US investigators yesterday said that Malik had pledged allegiance to the Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi on Facebook.

Officials had said that as the attack in San Bernardino was happening, Malik, a mother of a six-month old baby, posted a pledge of allegiance to Baghdadi on Facebook.

While Malik was a Pakistani national, Farook's parents migrated to the US from Pakistan. Both were killed the same day by the police in an exchange of fire.

A pro-Islamic State Arabic-language news agency Aamaq had called Malik and Farook "sympathisers" of the Islamic State group but stopped short of claiming responsibility for the attack.

In addition to having recovered a large haul of ammunition from the couple's apartment in San Bernardino, the FBI also got huge electronic material which the couple unsuccessfully tried to destroy before being killed by the police.

"We are going through a very large volume of electronic evidence. This is electronic evidence that these killers tried to destroy and tried to conceal from us, that we now have and are exploiting to try and understand them," Comey said.

Meanwhile, President Barack Obama, in his weekly address, said the couple who carried out the deadly California massacre may have been radicalised to commit an act of terror.

He asserted that Americans will not be terrorised. Obama also renewed his call to for tightening gun control measures. — PTI