https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2015/12/09/san-bernardino-attackers-talked-about-jihad-and-martyrdom-in-2013/by Adam Goldman and Mark Berman December 9 at 2:14 PM
The attackers who killed 14 people in San Bernardino last week were discussing jihad at least two years before they opened fire in California, the FBI director said Wednesday.
The husband-and-wife duo “were radicalized for quite a long time before their attack,” FBI Director James B. Comey said during an appearance on Capitol Hill. This follows earlier statements by investigators that the shooters had both been adherents to a radical strain of Islam long before the massacre.
Syed Rizwan Farook, a 28-year-old county health inspector, and his Pakistani wife, Tashfeen Malik, 29, had begun communicating online, Comey said. It was during these communications that they began discussing jihadist thoughts, long before Malik traveled to the United States and they got married.
“And online…as early as the end as 2013, they were talking to each other about jihad and martyrdom before they became engaged and then married and lived together in the United States,” Comey said during his testimony in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee.
This radicalization appears to predate the rise of the Islamic State, the terrorist group that in 2014 formally declared a caliphate in parts of Iraq and Syria.
Comey said investigators believe the attackers were “inspired by foreign terrorist organizations.”
“We’re working very hard to understand exactly their association and the source of their inspiration,” he said. “We’re also working very hard to understand whether there was anybody else involved with assisting them, with supporting them, with equipping them.”
When asked by Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), a presidential candidate, if the marriage between Malik and Farook was arranged by a terrorist organization, Comey said he didn’t know yet.
“It would be a very important thing to know,” Comey said. He also said he was not aware of any Islamic State cells operating in the United States.
Comey was critical of anti-Muslim rhetoric, saying that it was not helpful when law enforcement officials are trying to work with communities in the United States to combat terrorism. He said that for the Islamic State and other terrorist organizations, it was part of their strategy to persuade Muslims that the United States is hostile to them.
The GOP presidential front-runner, Donald Trump, drew international criticism this week for his call to ban all Muslims from the United States following the San Bernardino shooting and the attacks in Paris last month.
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