Woman in deadly California rampage had become more devout

A change came over Tashfeen Malik two or three years ago.

She started dressing more conservatively, wearing a scarf that covered nearly all her face, and became more devout in her Muslim faith, according to some who knew her in Pakistan.

But her path from there to the bloody events of this past week – when she and her husband slaughtered 14 people in a commando-style shooting rampage – remains a mystery, with FBI officials, family lawyers and others saying they know little about the 29-year-old housewife and new mother.

As the FBI announced Friday that it is investigating the massacre as a terrorist attack, law enforcement authorities and others offered evidence that Malik held radical beliefs and shared them online, posting praise for the Islamic State group on Facebook at about the same moment she and her American-born husband, Syed Farook, 28, launched the rampage.

The turn in the investigation raised a host of questions, among them:

▪ If the couple was radicalized, when, where and how did it happen?

▪ If it happened before Malik came to the U.S., did counterterrorism authorities miss any warning signs when they investigated her before approving her visa?

▪ Which of them was the driving force in the attack?

“Malik seems to be a very nebulous figure,” said Natana DeLong-Bas, an assistant professor of theology at Boston College. She said the case should cause people to rethink some of their assumptions about extremism.

“We always seem to assume only a man would be capable of making a terrorist attack,” DeLong-Bas said. “Because we know so little about Tashfeen Malik, it’s possible she might have been the main organizer in this event and talked her husband into doing it.”

Husband and wife were killed in a furious shootout with police hours after they put on battle gear and stormed a social service center with assault rifles, opening fire on a gathering of Farook’s colleagues from the San Bernardino County health department, where he worked as a restaurant inspector.

A U.S. law enforcement official said Malik used a Facebook alias to pledge her allegiance to the Islamic State group and its leader. And a Facebook official said Malik praised Islamic State in a post at the start of the attack. Both spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly.

Similarly, U.S. officials said Farook had been in contact with extremists via social media, but one official said those contacts were not recent and did not involve any significant players on the FBI’s radar.

FBI Director James Comey would not discuss whether anyone affiliated with IS communicated back, but he said there was no indication yet that the plot was directed by any other foreign terror group.

“The investigation so far has developed indications of radicalization by the killers and of potential inspiration by foreign terrorist organizations,” Comey said. He cautioned that the investigation has not yet shown evidence the couple was part of a larger group.

Despite signs of the couple’s radicalization, there “is a lot of evidence that doesn’t quite make sense” at this early stage, he said.

The Farook family attorneys, Chesley and Mohammad Abuershaid, said none of his relatives had any indication either Farook or his wife held extremist views.

“If the most evidence there is to any affiliation is a Facebook account under another person’s name … then that’s hardly anything at all,” Chesley said.

He and Abuershaid said the family was shocked by the attack and mourns for the victims. They cautioned against rushing to judgment on their motivations.

David Bowdich, head of the FBI’s Los Angeles office, said “a number of pieces of evidence” point to terrorism and that the agency was focused on that idea “for good reason.” He would not elaborate.

Bowdich said investigators were looking carefully to determine if there is a connection to IS.

Farook was born in Chicago to Pakistani parents and raised in Southern California. Malik arrived in the U.S. in 2014 on a Pakistani passport and a fiancee visa but had spent extended periods of time in Saudi Arabia.

She started studying pharmacy at Bahauddin Zakariya University in the Pakistani city of Multan in 2012.

A maid who worked in the Multan home where Malik lived said that Malik initially wore a scarf that covered her head but not her face. A year before she got married, she began wearing a scarf that covered all but her nose and eyes, the maid said. The maid spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of jeopardizing her employment with the family.

A relative of Malik’s in Pakistan, Hifza Batool, reported hearing similar things from other family members about Malik, her step-niece.

“I recently heard it from relatives that she has become a religious person, and she often tells people to live according to the teachings of Islam,” said Batool, a teacher who lives in Karor Lal Esan, about 280 miles southwest of the Pakistani capital of Islamabad.

A Facebook official said Malik praised Islamic State in a post at 11 a.m. Wednesday, around the time the couple stormed a social service center where Farook’s co-workers from San Bernardino County’s health department had gathered.

An Islamic State-affiliated news service called Malik and Farook “supporters” of their Islamist cause but stopped short of claiming responsibility for the attack.

The U.S. official who revealed the Facebook post was not authorized to discuss the case publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity. The Facebook official, who also spoke on condition of anonymity because the person was not allowed under corporate policy to be quoted by name, said the company discovered Wednesday’s post the next day, removed the profile from public view and reported its contents to law enforcement.

Farook and Malik rented a townhome in Redlands, a few miles from the attack scene, where investigators said they found an arsenal of ammunition and homemade bombs.

On Friday morning, the property’s owner allowed reporters inside. The surreal scene – reporters walking among baby items, handling family photos and looking at dirty dishes in a sink – was broadcast live on cable TV.

While it appeared unseemly, Bowdich said the FBI had finished investigating the home. Among things authorities had found were two cellphones that had been crushed in an apparent attempt to destroy the information inside. Investigators were trying to retrieve the data.

“We hope that will take us to their motivation,” Bowdich said.

Until Friday, federal and local law enforcement officials said terrorism was a possibility but that the violence could have stemmed from a workplace grudge. The Farook family attorneys said he told relatives he had been teased at work about his beard.

They described Malik as a devoted home-keeper who closely followed religious traditions. They said Farook’s mother never saw any of the weapons or bombs authorities found. The FBI questioned her Wednesday night and, according to the attorneys, said they would not release her until Farook’s siblings came for questioning.

The couple’s orphaned daughter is in the care of child protective services and the family will try to recover her next week.

Farook had no criminal record, and neither he nor his wife was under scrutiny by local or federal law enforcement before the attack, authorities said.

Malik, 27, reportedly moved from her home country of Pakistan to Saudi Arabia and eventually came to the U.S. in 2014 on a fiancée visa. However, Saudi authorities say there is no record of her ever being a resident there.

Farook, a restaurant inspector for the county, was born in Chicago to Pakistani parents and raised in Southern California.

Farook went to the Dar Al Uloom Al Islamiyah of America mosque in San Bernardino every day but abruptly stopped coming three weeks ago. While many members said they knew Farook and described him as quiet and very studious, “no one knows anything about his wife,” said Mahmood Nadvi, son of the mosque’s founder.

Nadvi said FBI agents have questioned the mosque’s leaders about the couple.

Law enforcement officials have long warned that Americans acting in sympathy with Islamic extremists – though not on direct orders – could launch an attack inside the U.S. Using slick propaganda, the Islamic State in particular has urged sympathizers worldwide to commit violence in their countries.

Others have done so. In May, just before he attacked a gathering in Texas of people drawing cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad, a Phoenix man tweeted his hope that Allah would view him as a holy warrior.

Two weeks ago, with Americans on edge over the Islamic State attacks in Paris that left 130 people dead, Comey said that U.S. authorities had no specific or credible intelligence pointing to an attack on American soil.

Since March 2014, 71 people have been charged in the U.S. in connection with supporting IS, including 56 this year, according to a recent report from the George Washington University Program on Extremism. Though most are men, “women are taking an increasingly prominent role in the jihadist world,” the report said.

Contributing to this report were Associated Press writers Tami Abdollah, Ken Dilanian and Eric Tucker in Washington; Zarar Khan in Islamabad, Pakistan; Asim Tanveer in Karor Lal Esam, Pakistan; Brian Skoloff in Redlands, California; Kimberly Pierceall in San Bernardino, California; Lee Keath in Cairo, Egypt; and Gillian Flaccus, Christine Armario, Sue Manning and Justin Pritchard in Los Angeles.

This story was originally published December 5, 2015 at 4:01 PM with the headline "Woman in deadly California rampage had become more devout."