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Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik were responsible for the December
terrorist attack in San Bernardino.
FBI
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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, Syed Rizwan 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-time
address delivered from the Oval Office,
President Barack Obama defined the shooting as an act of terrorism.
According
to FBI Director James
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 radicalized
over 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
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