• March 29, 2024

BREAKING: This Just Made It A Little Harder (A LOT HARDER) For The Obama Admin. To Deny Radical Islam Involvement In San Bernardino Shootings

So, if, at this point, there is any doubt that the San Bernardino shootings weren’t a planned attack, on American soil, by radical Islam, this should talk you down from the politically corrected ledge. Hard drives “Lost?” Cell phones “destroyed?” Pledged allegiance to ISIS? Yeah, never mind! Work place violence. Sure.

Breaking on CNN: As the San Bernardino attack was happening, investigators believe the female shooter, f, posted on Facebook, pledging allegiance to ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, three U.S. officials familiar with the investigation told CNN.

The posting was by Malik made on an account with a different name, according to one U.S. official. The officials did not explain how they knew Malik made the post.

[Original story published at 10:17 a.m. ET]

Syed Rizwan Farook’s family had no idea.

No idea why he and his wife, Tashfeen Malik, would storm into a holiday luncheon in San Bernardino, California, for his co-workers and callously, viciously open fire, killing 14 people before dying in a shootout with police, family lawyers said. No idea that Farook had a makeshift bomb lab in the apartment he shared with his wife, 6-month-old daughter and mother. No idea that he’d apparently become radicalized, as law enforcement officials have said.

“It just doesn’t make sense for these two to be able to act like some kind of Bonnie and Clyde or something,” Farook family attorney David S. Chesley told CNN’s Chris Cuomo. “It’s just ridiculous. It doesn’t add up.”

Farook occasionally went alone to shooting ranges, and he bought significant amounts of ammunition. But Chesley and fellow family lawyer Mohammad Abuershaid insisted those aren’t red flags, nor are Farook’s trips to Saudi Arabia — first in 2013 for the Hajj, the annual pilgrimage to Mecca that Muslims are required to take at least once in their lifetime, then again to marry Malik, whom he’d met through an online dating service.

Members of a family who Abuershaid said “were living the American dream” have met voluntarily for hours with investigators. Yet, according to their lawyers, they have not managed to make sense of what happened.

Farook and Malik “kept to themselves,” Abuershaid said. But the interactions they did have didn’t hint at any significant changes in their thinking or demeanor, any turn to Islamist extremism, or any sign they were plotting a mass killing, the lawyer said.

“There was nothing to show that (Malik) was extreme at all,” Abuershaid said. “(And Farook) was a normal guy, in every sense of the word.”

It’s not that the family denies the couple carried out this massacre. They are shocked by it. And they’re also “very remorseful and they’re very sad.”

But that doesn’t mean they can explain it. Nor, Chesley says, have authorities. The shooters left no manifesto, the hard drive from their computer is gone, and two relatively new cell phones were found smashed in a garbage can near one of the crime scenes, law enforcement officials said.

“Really, everyone is clueless,” Chesley told CNN, “because there’s nothing that would characterize them to act in this manner.”

Possible terror links

So far, officials have speculated that Farook’s apparent radicalization may have been part of the reason. Part of it may have stemmed from workplace tensions. But they have declined to label this a terrorist attack.

“It would be irresponsible and premature for me to call this terrorism,” FBI official David Bodwich said Thursday. “The FBI defines terrorism very specifically, and that is the big question for us: What is the motivation for this?”

Neither Farook nor his wife had gotten into trouble with the law. Neither was on any list of potentially radicalized people, and they had no clear ties to any overseas terrorist groups.

But investigators are exploring Farook’s communications with at least one person who was being investigated for possible terror connections. Some were by phone, some on social media.

“These appear to be soft connections,” an official said, meaning they were not frequent contacts. Farook’s last communication with the contacts was months ago.

The FBI wants to interview some of them to learn more about their conversations with Farook.

A federal official said Farook has “overseas communications and associations,” but it’s not yet clear how relevant they are to the shootings. “We don’t know yet what they mean,” the official said.

Abuershaid says he thinks any focus on the shooters’ Muslim faith is misplaced.

“(These) are isolated individuals (that) don’t speak for the majority,” he said. “The religion of Islam is a beautiful religion that would never … agree with any type of killing like this. That is now what the religion is about: It is about peace, it is about love, it is about understanding. …

“These aren’t Muslim radicals. These aren’t Muslims.”

Was it a workplace dispute?

Widow shares about husband slain in San Bernardino

Widow shares about husband slain in San Bernardino 01:21

Could Farook’s decision to attack the luncheon have stemmed from a religious dispute with a co-worker? His family lawyer’s didn’t speculate, though Chesley did say that “at some times co-workers have done silly things, like made fun of Syed’s beard.”

One of Farook’s colleagues, Nicholas Thalasinos, liked to discuss religion and politics. He was one of the people killed in the Wednesday attack at Inland Regional Center.

Farook and Thalasinos, reportedly a devout Messianic Jew, once had a “heated, passionate” discussion, said Kuuleme Stephens, a friend of Thalasinos, who had called him at work.

The men were sticking by their strongly held positions but were not fighting, Stephens said.

Thalasinos’ widow, Jennifer, said he was very verbal about terrorism. “He’s very upset about what ISIS has been doing and the radicalized Muslims,” she said.

RELATED STORY: NOT WORKPLACE VIOLENCE! NOT JUST ANOTHER MASS SHOOTING! FBI ADMITS TERRORIST CONNECTION IN SAN BERNARDINO SHOOTINGS.

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