San Bernardino attackTashfeen Malik pledged allegiance to ISIS

Flag of thhe Islamic State of Iraq and Syria // Source: commons.wikimedia.org

Tashfeen Malik, one of the two attackers who killed fourteen people in a San Bernardino social service center, used her smartphone to post a pledged allegiance on her Facebook page to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, ISIS leader – and officials say that timeline of the attack shows that she posted her message while driving with her husband, Syed Rizwan Farook, in the black SUV in the moments after the attack.

The two were killed in a shootout with the police about two hours later.

Yesterday, the FBI said that Farook had been in contact with at least two international terrorism subjects who were already being monitored by the FBI.

CNN reported that Farook had been in touch with these international terrorism figures on social media, and that he had also contacted them by phone on several occasions.

FBI analysts told CNN that if this information checks out, it may mean that Farouk and his wife may have become radicalized in the months leading up to the deadly attack.

The Washington Post reports that the police said they had found a number of electronic items, including thumb drives, computers, and cellphones, in the couple’s house, and that these items were being analyzed to investigate the couple’s digital trail.

The officials said, however, that the digital analysis would not be easy because Farook and Malik destroyed or broke some of the devices, with some smashed into little pieces.

David Bowdich, assistant director in charge of the FBI’s Los Angeles office, said at a news conference that some evidence collected in California was flown across the country on Thursday so that the FBI could examine it in its lab.

“We’re hoping some of that digital media … will help us,” he said.

The Post notes that the FBI’s Operational Technology Division in Quantico, Virginia has units specializing in retrieving data from smashed, burned, and damaged devices, including cellphones, hard drives, and flash drives.

Officials told the New York Times that there is no evidence that ISIS had directed the couple to launch the attack.

“At this point we believe they were more self-radicalized and inspired by the group than actually told to do the shooting,” one of the officials said.

The FBI has, in recent months, been concerned about individuals inspired, rather than directed, by ISIS to launch attacks in the United States. The Times reports that the agency had under heavy surveillance at least three dozen individuals who the authorities were concerned might commit violence in ISIS name.

Law enforcement officials told the Times that shift in focus by the FBI followed a shift in tactics by ISIS. The Islamist group, rather than persuading its American followers to travel to Syria to fight there in ISIS ranks, began urging its U.S. sympathizers and followers to launch attacks at home.

“We’ve especially focused on the portfolio of people we’re investigating for the potential of being homegrown violent extremists,” the FBI director, James B. Comey, said last month at a news conference. “That is, people consuming the propaganda. So those investigations are designed to figure out where are they on the spectrum from consuming to acting.”

“Within that group we’re trying to focus on those we think might be at the highest risk of being a copycat,” Comey said, referring to those who may try to follow the attackers in Paris. “And so we are pressing additional resources, additional focus against those. That’s the dozens.”