Tag: san bernardino shooting
No Evidence California Attackers Were Part Of Terrorist Cell: FBI Head

No Evidence California Attackers Were Part Of Terrorist Cell: FBI Head

By Joseph Ax

NEW YORK (Reuters) – There is no evidence a married couple who killed 14 people in California this month were part of a terrorist cell, the head of the FBI said on Wednesday, confirming that investigators believe the pair were inspired but not directed by Islamic State.

The Islamist militant group has “revolutionized” terrorism by seeking to inspire such small-scale attacks, FBI Director James Comey said, noting the group uses social media, encrypted communications and slickly produced propaganda to recruit followers around the world.

“Your parents’ al Qaeda was a very different model than the threat we face today,” Comey told a counterterrorism conference in New York.

However, he said that while the perpetrators of the Dec. 2 shootings in San Bernardino, California – Syed Rizwan Farook, 28, and Tashfeen Malik, 29 – had expressed support for “jihad and martyrdom” in private communications as early as 2013, they never did so publicly on social media.

He also said authorities believe Mohammed Abdulazeez, the suspect in July’s fatal shooting of four U.S. Marines and a Navy sailor in Chattanooga, Tennessee, was radicalized by militant propaganda.

“To my mind, there’s no doubt that the Chattanooga killer was inspired and motivated by foreign terrorist organization propaganda,” he said, but did not specify any particular group.

Comey said the Federal Bureau of Investigation currently has “hundreds” of investigations in all 50 U.S. states involving potential Islamic State-inspired plots.

Islamic State controls wide swaths of Iraq and Syria, where it seeks to carve out a caliphate. It claimed responsibility for attacks in Paris on Nov. 13 that killed 130 people.

The group has a three-pronged strategy, Comey said: recruit fighters to join it in the Middle East, inspire individuals in other countries to carry out attacks and send out trained operatives to commit violence in Europe and the United States.

It has perfected the use of social media, and Twitter in particular, to contact potential followers, he said.

“Twitter works as a way to sell books, as a way to promote movies, and it works as a way to crowdsource terrorism – to sell murder,” Comey said.

Islamic State also frequently employs encrypted communications, Comey said. He renewed his calls for technology companies to avoid creating devices and services that cannot be accessed, even with a proper court order.

But Comey said he is convinced that law enforcement and tech companies can work together without compromising personal privacy.

“We are not going to break the Internet,” he said.

(Reporting by Joseph Ax; Editing by Scott Malone and Frances Kerry)

Tashfeen Malik, (L), and Syed Farook are pictured passing through Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport in this July 27, 2014 handout photo obtained by Reuters December 8, 2015. REUTERS/US Customs and Border Protection/Handout via Reuters

 

 

San Bernardino Attacker Was ‘Normal Guy’ While Practicing At Shooting Range

San Bernardino Attacker Was ‘Normal Guy’ While Practicing At Shooting Range

By Richard A. Serrano, Richard Winton, Sarah Parvini and Corina Knoll, Los Angeles Times (TNS)

LOS ANGELES — Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik had been radicalized “for quite some time” and practiced shooting at a gun range days before they opened fire on a San Bernardino holiday party, authorities said Monday.

Investigators have interviewed more than 400 people since Wednesday’s attack but are still trying to determine how long the couple plotted the massacre and what links if any they had with Islamic terrorist groups.

The FBI and other agencies are also working to assemble a profile of the couple’s life and how exactly they amassed their cache of weapons, ammunition and explosives.

“We are attempting to expand that investigation out and build it and build a picture of each person, the timeline and ultimately the crimes they committed,” said David Bowdich, assistant director in charge of the FBI’s Los Angeles office. “That takes time. We are in day five.”

Meanwhile, pieces of the puzzle continued to slowly emerge. The manager of a gun range in Riverside said Monday that Farook practiced shooting with a military-style weapon, adding that an employee described him as a “normal guy.”

John Galletta, a firearms instructor at Riverside Magnum Range, said the company turned over surveillance footage, financial records and sign-in logs to the FBI.

Two of the guns Farook and Malik used in Wednesday’s massacre — both semi-automatic rifles — had been given to the couple by a former neighbor, who was interviewed by investigators and checked himself into a mental hospital after the attacks, two law enforcement sources said.

Fallout from the attack continued to play out on the national political stage, with Republican front-runner Donald Trump calling for all Muslims to be barred from entering the United States for an indefinite period until leaders “can figure out what is going on.”

The incendiary statement, coming a day after President Barack Obama sought to reassure the nation, drew immediate condemnation from the White House and several of Trump’s rivals for the GOP nomination.

The developments came as officials described a sprawling global investigation into what drove the married couple to adopt extreme beliefs and whether they had any links to foreign terror organizations.

Bowdich cautioned that terrorists can be bred by online rhetoric and are not necessarily linked to a group.

“We are working with our foreign counterparts to determine as much as we can,” he said. “It’s like any other investigation, but this one is incredibly large.” More than 300 pieces of evidence have been collected — some of which were sent to Washington, D.C., to be analyzed at the FBI’s explosive device center. Among the items taken from the shooters’ Redlands home were 19 pipes that could be converted into bombs.

The agency is also applying survey technology to the crime scene at the Inland Regional Center, where the shooting began. A reconstruction team is attempting “to ultimately paint that picture of how everything transpired that day,” Bowdich said.

“Our job is to continue the investigation at breakneck speed,” he added.

John D’Angelo of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, said three guns were recovered from the shootout scene and the couple’s rented two-story townhouse. Farook had legally purchased a Savage Arms .22 rifle, Llama 9 mm handgun, and a Springfield Armory 9 mm handgun between 2007 and 2012, D’Angelo said.

An acquaintance, Enrique Marquez, had given the couple the semiautomatic Smith & Wesson M&P15 and .223-caliber DPMS A-15 rifles, authorities said.

Until a few months ago, Farook and Malik lived in Riverside, next door to Marquez. Farook, observed as quiet and withdrawn, struck up a friendship with Marquez, who shared a similar interest in tinkering with cars, a neighbor recalled.

“They would spend hours and hours and hours together,” said the neighbor, Rosie Aguirre. “That’s the most sociable I ever saw him with anyone.”

Federal authorities interviewed Marquez over the weekend, and a law enforcement official familiar with the investigation said the weapons he gave Farook were legally purchased in 2011 and 2012. There is no paperwork of them being transferred to Farook, he said.

On Sunday, the FBI seized items from Marquez’s home after having spent several hours there the day before, according to neighbors. There was no indication at the time that Marquez had any knowledge of the plot, a source said.

Authorities have said it appears Farook and Malik underwent a great amount of planning before the attack.

Scrubbing the backgrounds of Farook, 28, and Malik, 29 — who were killed in a shootout with police hours after their rampage — has been an international effort, with cooperation from foreign governments. In Pakistan, where Malik attended college and Farook’s parents were born, the interior minister announced an inquiry into the shooters’ background had been launched. Investigators were also looking to sources in Saudi Arabia, where Malik lived as a child.

Federal investigators are trying to determine if Farook was influenced by Mohamed Abdullahi Hassan, a former Minneapolis resident known as “Mujahid Miski” who became a recruiter for Islamic State and allegedly encouraged the attempted attack on a cartoon contest in Garland, Texas, earlier this year. The U.S. State Department said Monday that Hassan turned himself in to authorities in Somalia, where had been hiding.

FBI officials have said that Farook had “some contact” with someone known to the FBI in this country and also reached out digitally to at least two members of foreign terror groups, including one in Somalia said federal law enforcement official, who is unauthorized to speak publicly on the matter.

Born in Chicago and raised in Riverside, Farook met Malik on a dating website. The couple were married last year in Islam’s holy city of Mecca in Saudi Arabia, and Saudi officials confirmed that Farook spent nine days in the kingdom in the summer of 2014. The couple’s daughter was born in May, according to records.

Farook’s sister and mother hope to gain custody of the baby, the Council on American-Islamic Relations said in a statement. The organization said it is working to place the baby with a Muslim family as it remains in child protective services. A follow-up custody hearing has been scheduled for January.

(Times staff writers Paloma Esquivel, Veronica Rocha, Joseph Serna, Matt Stevens, Matt Hamilton contributed to this report.)

©2015 Los Angeles Times. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Photo: Patrons enter the Riverside Magnum Range in Riverside, Calif., on Monday, Dec. 7, 2015. The range’s spokesperson confirmed that Syed Rizwan Farook practiced in its indoor shooting range days before the deadly attack in San Bernardino. (Marcus Yam/Los Angeles Times/TNS)

 

Shooting Victim’s Widow Says Husband Was Targeted Over Beliefs

Shooting Victim’s Widow Says Husband Was Targeted Over Beliefs

By Matt Hamilton and Hailey Branson-Potts, Los Angeles Times (TNS)

LOS ANGELES — The widow of a man killed in last week’s rampage in San Bernardino said Monday that she believed the two shooters targeted her husband, and possibly other victims, because of their divergent religious beliefs.

Jennifer Thalasinos told Sean Hannity on his Fox News show Hannity that her husband was a devout Messianic Jew who often wore a Star of David tie clip.

Nicholas Thalasinos, one of the 14 killed in the massacre, worked at the County of San Bernardino’s health department alongside one of the assailants, Syed Rizwan Farook. Thalasinos’ wife said that they had “completely disagreed” on issues surrounding Israel.

Hannity asked her, “Do you believe that maybe your husband was the person targeted by these two people?”

“Yes I do,” Thalasinos replied. “I also think some of the other people that were killed were also intended targets because of their religious views and because of the discussions that they had had with the shooter.”

The two had talked about whether Islam was a religion of peace, she said. That her husband offered strong opinions on Middle Eastern politics and Islam was not unusual. The discussions, however, were not contentious, she said, and there were no signs that Farook had become radicalized.

“I know my husband discussed religion and Israel with a lot of people, including (Farook),” she said.

The FBI has not interviewed Thalasinos about her husband’s relationship with Farook, she said, but she anticipates speaking with federal agents in the coming days.

The interview with Thalasinos comes as federal officials said they are digging deep into the background of Farook and his Pakistani wife, Tashfeen Malik. Authorities believe the two marched down the path of radical Islam and were inspired to carry out the rampage at the Inland Regional Center in San Bernardino.

The attacks left 14 dead and injured 21. Most, like Nicholas Thalasinos, were co-workers of Farook in the county’s health department.

A close friend recounted a particular conversation that she heard about Nicholas Thalasinos having with Farook about two weeks before the rampage.

Kuuleme Stephens said Thalasinos had called during his lunch break and explained that he and Farook were sparring over Israel’s role in the Middle East. Farook did not believe Israel belonged in the Mideast and that it was a Muslim homeland, Nicholas told her.

Thalasinos said that “he didn’t know what to do to get through to him and how to talk to him,” Stephens said.

Still, she recalled, that the conversation between Farook and Thalasinos was brief.

“It didn’t set off any bells or whistles for me,” Stephens said.

(Times staff writer Veronica Rocha contributed to this report.)

©2015 Los Angeles Times. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Photo: The memorial for the mass shooting victims in San Bernardino is growing larger by the minute, with mourners dropping-off candles and flowers at the corner of Waterman Avenue and Orange Show Drive Dec. 7, 2015 in San Bernardino, Calif. (Mark Boster/Los Angeles Times/TNS)

 

Analysis: For Obama, Bigger Stage, Bolder Words, Same Policy

Analysis: For Obama, Bigger Stage, Bolder Words, Same Policy

By Lesley Clark and Anita Kumar, McClatchy Washington Bureau (TNS)

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama appears to be playing catchup to the national mood on terrorism.

His prime-time speech Sunday on the threat posed by Islamic State militants and their admirers may have been only his third address ever from the Oval Office. But he has spoken at least a dozen times about terrorism in the weeks since the Paris attacks and the mass shooting in San Bernardino, Calif. And it apparently hasn’t worked.

The unusual venue of a prime-time TV address came as aides sought a way for Obama to reassert himself on the issue of national security. Despite frequent comments in past days, he’s faced criticism from Republicans for what seemed a dispassionate response to the back-to-back attacks, doubts about his strategy from members of both major parties, and the defection of 47 Democrats in the House of Representatives who did not accept his assurance that his administration already is doing an adequate job screening refugees from Syria.

Yet much of Obama’s failure to drive the conversation his way — that his strategy against the Islamic State is working however slowly — stems from his own rhetoric, particularly his reluctance to speak in anger or alarm about terrorism. Last week, for example, his White House lagged behind his own FBI director in saying flatly that the San Bernardino attack was an Islamic jihadist-inspired “act of terrorism.”

On Sunday, Obama strived to use clearer language to assure the country.

“This was an act of terrorism,” he said of the California attacks.

“We will destroy ISIL and any other organization that tries to harm us,” he added, sharpening his wording from his traditional phrasing of “degrade and ultimately destroy.”

He also implored Americans not to scapegoat Muslims for the actions of a “death cult,” but called out Muslim leaders and nations to do more themselves. “It’s a real problem that Muslims must confront without excuse,” he said.

Obama’s usual reticence — also on display in the aftermath of the 2009 Fort Hood, Texas, shooting and his administration’s initial focus on a video-inspired demonstration after the 2012 attack in Benghazi, Libya — is seen as deliberate caution by his White House and dismissed as insufficient to the task by his critics.

Before Obama spoke, a senior administration official knowledgeable about the speech but not authorized to speak publicly as a matter of practice said that the president “felt compelled” to deliver a speech to address fears prompted by both recent attacks.

“We recognized that there are very real and legitimate fears in the United States and around the world about the nature of this terrorist threat,” the official said.

Republicans were unmoved: “President Obama is a wartime president who doesn’t seem to realize it,” said Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark.

Obama’s customary hesitancy followed by acknowledgment reflects an inherent tension in Obama’s presidency: He campaigned for the White House, and has spent much of his seven years in office promising to turn the page on war and the threat of terrorism only to be forced to react by events in a convulsing Middle East. He again ruled out a ground war Sunday.

John Hudak, a fellow in governance studies at the Brookings Institution who studies the presidency, said Obama’s “overly cautious” tendency comes from a naturally deliberative personality as well as a rare attitude for a politician that if he doesn’t have anything to say then he won’t say anything. Americans often want to hear from their presidents, though, in the way Bill Clinton spoke after the Oklahoma City bombing and George W. Bush after 9/11.

“After a series of tragedies, Americans are looking for someone somewhere to make them feel better,” Hudak said. “A president has the opportunity to make them feel better. … His biggest weakness is not being able to do that.”

Critics complain that Obama has a tendency to react slowly or awkwardly.

When a Muslim Army doctor killed 13 and wounded 30 others at Fort Hood, Obama didn’t comment until the following day. And his administration long called it an act of workplace violence, not Islamic-inspired terrorism.

After a would-be terrorist tried to blow up a Detroit-bound jetliner on Christmas Day 2009, a vacationing Obama didn’t make a public comment until four days later. When the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded in April 2010, Obama didn’t speak publicly on it until nine days later.

Republicans complain that Obama hasn’t been forceful enough.

“If I am elected president we will utterly destroy ISIS,” Republican presidential hopeful Ted Cruz said Saturday in Des Moines, Iowa. “We won’t degrade them. We will utterly destroy them. We will carpet bomb them into oblivion.”

Even prominent Democrats have criticized Obama’s strategy as weak, or have raised doubts about his assurances in past weeks.

In the House of Representatives, 47 Democrats brushed aside White House assurances that it is adequately screening refugees coming from Syria to the U.S., and voted for a bill that would require the administration to certify that any refugee has been fully vetted and is not a terrorist before they could be admitted to the U.S.

And on the campaign trail, Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton said Sunday that Obama’s approach needs bolstering. “We’re not winning,” she said on ABC News.

Jens David Ohlin, a law professor at Cornell University who studies war, said Obama is trying to strike a balance between his own cautious nature and what the American people want to hear in time of crises.

“Obama is often aggressive in his actions but rhetoric is always measured,” he said. “He’s not going to get on a soapbox and beat his chest.”

©2015 McClatchy Washington Bureau. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Photo: U.S. President Barack Obama speaks about counter-terrorism and the United States fight against Islamic State during an address to the nation from the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, December 6, 2015. REUTERS/Yuri Gripas