The horrific attack on a social services agency party in California that left 14 people dead and 21 injured was carried by two followers of the Islamic State, the terrorist group claimed in an online radio broadcast on Saturday. The attack was carried out by a Pakistani-origin couple.
“Two followers of Islamic State attacked several days ago a centre in San Bernadino in California,” the group's daily broadcast al-Bayan said.
A news agency which supports Islamic State said on Friday that the attackers were followers of the group. US government sources said that there was no evidence to prove that the attack was directed by the militant group or that the organisation even knew the attackers.
Both the US-born husband and his spouse, Tashfeen Malik, 29, a native of Pakistan who lived in Saudi Arabia for over 20 years, died in a shootout with police hours after Wednesday's attack on a holiday party at the Inland Regional Center social services agency in San Bernardino, about 100 km east of Los Angeles.
Meanwhile, the Federal Bureau opf Investigastion (FBI) is investigating the fatal shooting as an “act of terrorism,” officials said on Friday, noting that the wife was believed to have pledged allegiance to a leader of the West Asian militant group.
According to a report by the Investigative Project on Terrorism (IPT), a US-based non-governmental body that investigates into acts of terror, a mid-level IS commander, who variously refers to himself as Jazrawi_DAESH tweeted that the couple who carried out the attack were “special agents of IS” and that they murdered the innocents in “response to so called US bombing of Muslims”.
While the FBI said it lacked evidence the couple belonged to a larger organisation of extremists, the Los Angeles Times cited a federal law enforcement source in reporting that the husband, Syed Rizwan Farook, 28, had contact with at least two militant groups overseas, including the al Qaeda-affiliated Nusra Front in Syria.
“Based on the information and the facts as we know them, we are now investigating these horrific acts as an act of terrorism,” David Bowdich, Assistant Director of the FBI's Los Angeles office, said at a news conference, adding that the couple may have been planning another attack.
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The couple had two assault-style rifles, two semi-automatic handguns, 6,100 rounds of ammunition and 12 pipe bombs in their home or with them when they were killed, officials said.
The IPT said that the mass shooting occurred on the same day an Islamic State propaganda video vowed attacks against Washington and New York.
“#BringItOn CHALLENGE ACCEPTED !!# AMERICAONFIRE WHEN WE SAY WE'LL KILL YOU IN UR COUNTRIES WE MEAN IT (sic),” IS supporter Alharthidz Jarallah tweeted on the day of the attack.
According to IPT, he later tweeted that IS “warned USA led coalition and they don't listening (sic)”.
In another tweet, Jarallah taunted the US, saying: “That's what you get America don't play with us cuz you'll get burned #AmericaBurning.”
Another IS supporter, @Pashbakr1, tweeted wondering if the killers were lone jihadists, “Lone Wolf Blessed Attacks !?”
IPT further said that a leading IS propagandist who tweets under the handle ‘Muslimah' congratulated the couple for the San Bernardino assault, calling them “martyrs”.
“May Allah Accept Our Brother & Sister who were martyred after carrying out an operation against Crusaders in USA,” she tweeted.
