In an online radio broadcast Saturday, the Islamic State said two “supporters” had carried out the attacks in San Bernardino but did not refer to the couple as members. The group praised the attacks but didn't claim responsibility for it, reported the Associated Press. The FBI is investigating the massacre as an act of terrorism, as officials said the Pakistani woman who teamed with her husband in the slaughter went on Facebook afterward to pledge her allegiance to the leader of the Islamic State, reports the Washington Post. Investigators are trying to determine if the husband-and-wife killers acted alone, inspired but not directed by foreign Islamist radicals, or were involved in a more elaborate plot.
Hundreds of federal agents, in the United States and overseas, are looking for any contacts that shooters Chicago-born Syed Rizwan Farook, 29, and his wife, Tashfeen Malik, 27 might have had with terrorist groups. “The investigation so far has developed indications of radicalization by the killers and of potential inspiration by foreign terrorist organizations,” said FBI Director James Comey. There are a host of unknowns in this case, including whether the shooters had other targets in mind. The possibility was suggested by the dozen pipe bombs and the thousands of rounds of ammunition in their apartment. Two criminal defense lawyers representing Farook's family described the husband as a loner and the wife as extremely conservative religiously, so much so that she would not be in the same room as her male in-laws. Malik's brother-in-law had never seen her face.