FBI: San Bernardino Killers Radicalized 'For Some Time,' Participated In Target Practice Within Days Of Massacre
SAN BERNARDINO, Calif (CBSNewYork/AP) -- Both the husband and wife behind the Dec. 2 shooting at a holiday party in San Bernardino, Calif., that left 14 dead were radicalized "for some time," the FBI said Monday.
David Bowdich, assistant director of the FBI's Los Angeles office, also said at a news conference Monday that Syed Farook and his wife, Tashfeen Malik, participated in target practice at ranges within the Los Angeles area including once within days of the attack that killed 14 people.
Bodwich said the bureau doesn't know when or whether anyone else radicalized them.
The FBI has said it's investigating the shooting at a holiday gathering of Farook's co-workers as an act of terrorism.
Bowdich also said they found 19 pipes in the couple's home in Redlands, California, that could be turned into bombs with all the right components.
Malik had attended an Islamic religious school, or madrassa, while living in Pakistan, intelligence officials and the school said Monday.
Malik and her American-born husband Syed Farook were killed in a shootout with police hours after they opened fire with assault rifles on a gathering of Farook's colleagues last Wednesday
This was the deadliest such attack on U.S. soil since Sept. 11, 2001.
In a rare Oval Office address, President Barack Obama on Sunday night urged Americans to not give into fear following attacks in Paris and California, while trying to assure the public that he takes the threat of terrorism seriously.
"Our military will continue to hunt down terrorist plotters in any country where it is necessary. In Iraq and Syria air strikes are taking out ISIL leaders.
Obama called for Congress to continue to authorize airstrikes, but in a just released CNN/ORC poll the majority of Americans, 53 percent, said the U.S. should send ground troops to Iraq and Syria to fight ISIS.
Obama said it's clear they had gone down the "dark path of radicalization." He called it an "act of terrorism designed to kill innocent people."
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