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FBI: California shooters radicalized at least 2 years ago

FBI: California shooters radicalized at least 2 years ago

Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — The two San Bernardino shooters were radicalized at least two years ago — well before one of them came to the U.S. on a fiancée visa — and had discussed jihad and martyrdom as early as 2013, FBI Director James Comey said Wednesday in providing the most specific details to date about the couple's path toward extremism.

Investigators are also looking at whether the husband accused in the shootings was planning an attack in 2012 but abandoned those plans, according to two people familiar with the investigation who were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.

One week into its investigation, the FBI now believes that Syed Rizwan Farook and his wife, Tashfeen Malik, embraced radical Islamic ideology even before they had begun their online relationship and that Malik held extremist views before she arrived in the U.S. last year, Comey told the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Though the FBI believes the pair was inspired in part by Islamic State ideology — Malik pledged allegiance to the group's leader in a Facebook post around the time of last week's massacre — agents are still looking for other motivations and sources of radicalization, especially because the couple's interest in extremism predates the terror group's emergence as a household name.

'ISIL inspiration may well have been part of this, but these two killers were staring to radicalize towards martyrdom and jihad as early as 2013,' said Comey, using an acronym for the Islamic State. 'And so that's really before ISIL became the global jihad leader that it is.'

The latest disclosure also suggests that the government's vetting process failed to detect Malik's radicalization when she applied for the visa, though Comey said he didn't know enough to say whether weaknesses in the visa process enabled her to enter the U.S.

'After this hearing today, every American will be asking the question, how did this woman come in on a fiancée visa?' said Sen. Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat and member of the committee.

Malik came to the United States in July 2014 from Pakistan after being approved for a K-1, or fiancée visa, and married Farook the following month. Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson has said the Obama administration is now reviewing the program. He did not say what changes were being considered.

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