The couple who carried out the brutal attack in San Bernardino were "radicalized" before they were married and discussed jihad and martyrdom as early as 2013, according to new information from the FBI.
Syed Farook and his wife Tashfeen Malik were "radicalized" before they had even met online, FBI Director James Comey told the Senate Judiciary Committee Wednesday.
Malik, who was originally from Pakistan, and Farook, a U.S. citizen who was born in Chicago, met on a dating website. He later travelled to Saudi Arabia where the pair met and became engaged.
Farook and Malik travelled back to the U.S. together in the summer of 2014, and soon were married. The couple have a six-month-old daughter.
Comey said the couple was clearly inspired by a foreign terror organization, but that investigators did not yet know whether their online courtship was arranged by such a group or developed naturally on its own. He refused to weigh in on whether any of the messages sent between the pair or others were encrypted.
FBI Dir. Comey wouldn't say if encryption was used in Paris or San Bernardino but says there's no doubt terrorists use encryption, esp ISIS.— Jo Ling Kent (@jolingkent) December 9, 2015
In the days after the attack, investigators revealed that Malik had written a Facebook post voicing support for ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi during the shooting. Interestingly, ISIS had not yet risen to prominence two years ago when the FBI says the San Bernardino shooters were beginning to discuss jihad and martyrdom.
The Dec. 2 attack on a conference center in San Bernardino, California, left 14 dead and 21 injured after the couple stormed the building and shot indiscriminately into a room full of Farook's coworkers.
Farook, 28, was an environmental inspector for the San Bernardino County Department of Public Health, the group that was having the party at the conference center that day. He left early and then returned with Malik. The pair shot between 65 and 75 rounds into the crowd and attempted to detonate a pipe bomb before fleeing. They later died in a shootout with police on the streets of San Bernardino.