Three U.S. officials familiar with the San Bernardino massacre have told CNN that the woman involved in the shooting authored — as the incident was occurring — a Facebook post declaring her loyalty to the leader of ISIS.
Tashfeen Malik’s post pledging allegiance to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was made on an account with a different name, according to one U.S. official.
The officials did not explain how they knew Malik made the post.
Here’s what we know so far about Tashfeen Malik:
Married to Syed Rizwan Farook, lived in Saudi Arabia
Malik, 27, was married to Syed Rizwan Farook, 28, her accomplice in the shooting Wednesday that left 14 people dead and 17 injured.
Falik was born in Pakistan and lived in Saudi Arabia before coming to the United States on a “fiancée visa.” She later became a lawful permanent resident. The couple are survived by a 6-month-old daughter, whom they left with a grandmother the day of the shooting.
Mohammad Abuershaid, an attorney for Farook’s family, on Friday said the couple met through an online dating website, and that Farook traveled to Saudi Arabia to marry her.
“His wife was born in Pakistan. She was born and raised in Pakistan. And then at 18 to 20, she moved to Riyadh,” Abuershaid told CNN’s Chris Cuomo.
‘Nothing … out of the ordinary’
Like her husband, Malik wasn’t on any list of potentially radicalized people, and there was no evidence linking her to any terror groups overseas prior to news of the Facebook posting.
“There was nothing to show that she was extreme at all,” Abuershaid told CNN. “She was a practicing Muslim, she believed in the religion, and she was just doing the five prayers a day, the fasting… there was nothing to show that she was out of the ordinary. ”
Abuershaid said there was nothing to show she was responsible for radicalizing her husband.