Syed Rizwan Farook (28) and his wife Tashfeen Malik (27) committed the deadliest U.S. mass shooting since 2012, before being killed by police in a shootout.
Now is became clear: it was a terror attack with maybe worse to come.
By self-radicalized lone-wolfs in the U.S..
Mainly the wife was inspired by ISIS, but not in the chain of command, like the attackers in Paris.
Here the 6 reasons why it was a terror attack:
1. Today ISIS described the two on radio as “supporters” of the terror group.
2. Female shooter Tashfeen Malik posted a pledge of allegiance to ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi on Facebook, on an account with a different name.
3. They had 12 homemade simple pipe bombs and a lot of ammunition (5000) at home.
4. Both erased their digital footprint a day in advance of the attack, deleting email accounts, disposing of hard drives and smashing their cell phones. The FBI tries to recover data from the two mobile phones that were found crushed in a waste bin near the scene.
5. Syed Rizan Farook was as well in touch with the al Nusra Front in Syria, affiliated with al Qaeda, the LA Times reported.
6. Syed had a dispute with a Jewish colleague about Islam. Was it revenge as well and this the catalyst for the shooting? Even before a grand attack as maybe planed with the pipe bombs?
Both did not shout “Allah is great” or left radical Islamic messages, like in Paris or other terror events.
The couple had been married for two years.
Syed Rizan Farook, who is an American citizen, was an environmental health specialist with the San Bernardino County health department, which was hosting the holiday party at the Inland Regional Center where the attack took place.He made $53,000 in 2013.
Farook could be radicalized visiting Saudi Arabia, by online propaganda, or his wife.
The killing is unique as 99 percent of mass shootings are done by a single man, here even a couple and a woman involved.
Mass killings are NOT exceptional, but unfortunately a deadly tradition in the USA.
The four guns the killers used, two assault-style rifles, and two handguns, were purchased legally. Farook bought the handguns at Annie’s Get Your Gun in Corona, California.
Like this Muslim couple, shooters can get rifles, guns and ammunition very easy. Even terrorists like this couple, together with 6200 pieces of ammunition.
Without easy guns, no easy killing in America.
Here the shocking numbers of mass shootings (with at least four dead or wounded ) and the number of people killed in those sad events in the US in 2013, 2014 and 2015, based on shootingtracker.com:
Shootings Dead
2013 316 502
2014 336 383
2015 353 462
Plus more than 1,200 were wounded in mass shootings each year.
Many more people in the United States are killed by mass shootings than by terrorists.
More than 300 will be killed in 2016 and each other year again and again, if there is no change.
The gun-lobby is too strong and the people and their laws too loose.
The reality on Capitol Hill: No support of the Republicans for new gun laws.
This Congress will not pass new gun laws. The Senate blocked two new measures just this week.
On the photo President Barack Obama receives an update on the mass shootings from Lisa Monaco, Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism, as National Security Advisor Susan E. Rice listens, in the Oval Office.
Speaking on CBS, the president argued:
“It’s still an active situation. FBI is on the ground offering assistance to local officials as they need it. It does appear that there are going to be some casualties. And, obviously our hearts go out to the victims and the families. The one thing we do know is that we have a pattern now of mass shootings in this country that has no parallel anywhere else in the world. And there are some steps we could take not to eliminate every one of these mass shootings, but to improve the odds that they don’t happen as frequently: common-sense gun safety laws, stronger background checks.
And for those who are concerned about terrorism, some may be aware of the fact that we have a no-fly list where people can’t get on planes, but those same people who we don’t allow to fly could go into a store right now in the United States and buy a firearm and there’s nothing that we can do to stop them. That’s a law that needs to be changed.
And so my hope is that we’re able to contain this particular shooting, and we don’t yet know what the motives of the shooters are, but what we do know is that there are steps we can take to make Americans safer, and that we should come together in a bipartisan basis at every level of government to make these rare as opposed to normal. We should never think that this is something that just happens in the ordinary course of events, because it doesn’t happen with the same frequency in other countries.”
Before the shooting the couple had left their 6-month-old girl with Farook’s grandmother Wednesday and said they had a doctor’s appointment.
Speaking to ABC media, President Barack Obama condemned these attacks, lamenting the stagnant political landscape in the United States on gun control. “We have a pattern now of mass shootings in this country that has no parallel anywhere in the world” he said. The President argued that Congress has the power to change this – a view which is increasingly being held by the rest of the international community.
The power of this sentiment was captured by the tweet of Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy, elected shortly after the Sandy Hook massacre of 2012. “Oh God. Not again. #SanBernardino” he tweeted. Unfortunately, given the current state of the American gun ownership sphere, there is no reason to believe that this won’t indeed happen again.
The New York Times newspaper ran an editorial calling for stricter gun controls on the front page of Saturday’s print paper. It is the first time since 1920 that the paper has run an editorial on page one.
“It is a moral outrage and national disgrace that civilians can legally purchase weapons designed to kill people with brutal speed and efficiency…America’s elected leaders offer prayers for gun victims and then, callously and without fear of consequence, reject the most basic restrictions on weapons of mass killing.”
The paper’s publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr said the aim was “to deliver a strong and visible statement of frustration and anguish about our country’s inability to come to terms with the scourge of guns”.
FBI Photo:: Agent in training.