The woman who helped carry out Wednesday’s mass shooting in San Bernardino that killed 14 people pledged her allegiance to the Islamic State in a Facebook posting, federal officials say.
In the days before the shooting, Tashfeen Malik, 27, and her husband Syed Rizwan Farook, 28, attempted to delete most of their electronic tracks, reports the New York Times.
However, Investigators were able to discover a Facebook posting, posted under a different name and that has since been taken down, that may shed some light on what motivated the attack at the San Bernardino County Health Department. The Times notes that Islamic terrorists will often offer up an oath of allegiance called a bayat to declare their loyalty to the cause.
Federal officials believe the couple launched the attack on their own, via LA Times:
The officials, who were not authorized to speak publicly about the matter, cautioned that the new evidence did not mean that the militant group directed Malik and her husband to carry out the Wednesday attack and that investigators think it instead suggests that the couple had become self-radicalized.
The attorney representing Farook and Malik’s family said Malik did not speak about Islamic State or terrorism.
“As far as I know, there was no discussion of any of that [among family members],” Mohammad Abuershaid told the LA Times.