San Bernardino Killing: Farook Tied-In To Jihadists Recruiter? Plans Of A Larger Assault?
On December 2, 2015, a mass shooting transpired at the Inland Regional Center in San Bernardino, California, that left fourteen people killed and 22 injured by an Islamic extremism-inspired terrorist attack led by Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik, where the former is suspected of being tied-in to jihadists recruiter, Sohiel Kabir, according to sources.
The FBI believed that the 28-year old American-born US citizen, Syed Rizwan Farook, was tied-in to a group of jihadists in the state of California, who were arrested for attempting to travel to Afghanistan to join al Qaeda back in 2012, as reported by CNN.
To be exact, investigators of the FBI took a look at one member of the said group that was arrested in the 2012 case, Sohiel Kabir, who was convicted and given a sentence of 25 years of prison time for recruiting people to the jihadist faction and helping radicalize them, as stated by the source.
The radicalization appeared to have predated the rise of the Islamic State, the terrorist group that formally declared a caliphate in parts of Syria and Iraq last year, as reported by the Washington Post.
"We're working very hard to understand exactly their association and the source of their inspiration," FBI Director James B. Comey said, courtesy of the source. "We're also working very hard to understand whether there was anybody else invlolved with assisting them, with supporting them, with equipping them," he added.
In addition, the investigators also strived in giving all their efforts for the continued search for any digital footprints that Syed Rizwan Farook and his wife, Tashfeen Malik, might have left at the San Bernardino Lake that could indicate any further attempts of an assault at a larger scale, according to LA Times.
FBI investigators believed that the shooters planned an even larger assault, after an examination done of the digital equipment they recovered from the couples' home, as stated by the source.
FBI agents would probably spend a couple of days scouring at Seccombe Lake to look for electronic items, including a hard drive that the couple hoped to destroy, and canvassing the nearby neighborhood for clues, according to David Bowdichm assistant special agent in charge of the FBI's Los Angeles field office, courtesy of the source.