News / Society

No indication California shooters part of terrorist group: US

Saturday, 05 December 2015 10:21 PM [ Last Update: Wednesday, 09 December 2015 12:28 PM ]

US Press Secretary Josh Earnest speaks during the daily briefing at the White House in Washington, DC, on September 3, 2015. (AFP photo)

The United States says there is no indication that the two suspects of this week’s deadly California shooting spree were part of a terrorist group.

Tashfeen Malik, 29, and her husband Syed Rizwan Farook, 28, stormed a holiday party in San Bernardino, California on Wednesday, killing at least 14 people and injuring 21 in the deadliest mass shooting in the US in three years. Hours later, the couple died in a fire exchange with police.

Malik had pledged allegiance to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of the Daesh terrorist group, three US officials familiar with the investigation told CNN on Friday. On Saturday, the Takfiri group also claimed the couple as their followers.

White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said on Saturday a team of top officials told President Barack Obama “that they had as of yet uncovered no indication the killers were part of an organized group or formed part of a broader terrorist cell.”

The team included FBI Director James Comey, Attorney General Loretta Lynch, and Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson.

However, the White House said the team "highlighted several pieces of information that point to the perpetrators being radicalized to violence to commit these heinous attacks."

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is investigating the killings as an "act of terrorism."

Obama: Attackers were possibly radicalized

President Obama called the California shooting an act of terror carried out by attackers who were possibly radicalized.

"It is entirely possible that these two attackers were radicalized to commit this act of terror," Obama said. "And if so, it would underscore a threat we've been focused on for years - the danger of people succumbing to violent extremist ideologies."

American Muslims fear that the San Bernardino shooting has fueled a new wave of Islamophobia across the United States.

Only hours after news broke that suspects had Muslim names, American Muslims strongly condemned the incident, but this did not stop the US mainstream media from spewing hate and venom against Muslims and Islam.

American Muslims and their prayer leaders across the country say they are experiencing a wave of death threats, assaults and vandalism unlike anything they have experienced since the September 11 attacks in 2001 in the United States, The New York Times reported on Saturday.

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