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Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik were responsible for the December terrorist attack in San Bernardino. FBI |
On December 2, 2015, 14 people were killed and 22 were seriously injured in a terrorist attack at the Inland Regional Center in San Bernardino, California, which consisted of a mass shooting and an attempted bombing. The perpetrators, SyedRizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik, a married couple living in the city of Redlands, targeted a San Bernardino County Department of Public Health training event and Christmas party, of about 80 employees, in a rented banquet room. Farook was an American-born U.S. citizen of Pakistani descent, who worked as a health department employee. Malik was a Pakistani-born lawful permanent resident of the United States.
After the shooting, the couple fled in a rented sport utility vehicle (SUV). Four hours later, police pursued their vehicle and killed them in a shootout. On December 3, 2015, the Federal Bureau of Investigation(FBI) opened a counter-terrorism investigation. On December 6, 2015, in a prime-timeaddress delivered from the Oval Office, President Barack Obama defined the shooting as an act of terrorism.
According to FBI DirectorJames B. Comey, the FBI's investigation revealed that the perpetrators were "homegrown violent extremists" inspired by foreign terrorist groups. They were not directed by such groups and were not part of any terrorist cell or network. FBI investigators have said that Farook and Malik had become radicalizedover several years prior to the attack, consuming "poison on the internet" and expressing a commitment to jihadism and martyrdom in private messages to each other. Farook and Malik had traveled to Saudi Arabia in the years before the attack. The couple had amassed a large stockpile of weapons, ammunition, and bomb-making equipment in their home.
Enrique Marquez Jr., a friend and former neighbor of Farook, was investigated in connection with his purchase of the two rifles used in the attack. Marquez was arrested on December 17, 2015, and charged with three federal criminal counts: conspiracy to provide material support for terrorism, making a false statement in connection with acquisition of firearms, and immigration fraud. Federal prosecutors allege that in 2011, Farook and Marquez conspired to carry out shooting and bombing attacks, which they abandoned at the time. Three other people, including Farook's brother and sister-in-law, were arrested in relation to the immigration fraud charge on April 28, 2016.
The attack was the deadliest mass shooting in the U.S. since the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, and the deadliest terrorist attack to occur in the U.S. since the September 11 attacks, until the June 12, 2016, Orlando nightclub shooting.
INTERNET SOURCE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015_San_Bernardino_attack