Confirmed as inspired by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, the Dec. 2 San Bernardino massacre killing 13, injuring 21, presents real problems for the FBI, state and local law enforcement. While the San Benardino Police and Los Angeles County Sheriff tracked down mass killers 28-year-old Syed Rizwan Farook and his 27-year-old Pakistani wife Tashfeen Malik while they fled in their rented SUV, authorities have the daunting task of connecting-the-dots to a wider conspiracy in the area. Inspecting the contents of their Redlands town-home, law enforcement found a sizable arsenal and veritable bomb-making factory. Recovering the couple’s crushed mobile phones and computer with a missing hard-drive, proves Farook and Malik tried to cover their tracks after the Dec. 2 rampage. Handing the investigation to the FBI, San Bernardino authorities knew they were over their head.
FBI’s Los Angeles-based Asst. Director David Bowdich confirmed that the investigation had shifted from workplace violence to a Mideast terrorism investigation. “Based on the information and facts as we know them, we are now investigation these horrific acts as an act of terrorism,” Bowdich told reporters. Only a day before former FBI special investigator Robert Chacon told CNN’s Erin Burnett that the San Bernardino bloodbath looked like workplace violence. Chacon’s naive analysis failed to take into account that Farook and his wife pulled off the mass murder together. No workplace revenge-violence involves husband-and-wife. Chacon’s misjudgment shows how even experienced FBI agents get their wires crossed. President Barack Obama pushed the workplace violence angle when army psychiatrist Nidal Malik Hasan massacred 13 at Fort Hood Nov. 5, 2009.
White House officials true-to-form haven’t confirmed that the Dec. 2 San Bernardino massacre involved at the very least, ISIS-inspired terrorism. Beyond that, the FBI has its work cut out tracing how the modest couple had the resources of amass a weapons arsenal and build and veritable bomb-making factory. Like with the April 15, 2013 Boston Marathon bombing Chechen-born Tsarnaev brothers, questions remain who helped finance Farook and Malik’s ISIS terror cell. Bowdich hoped that the “finger prints” from the couples’ crushed mobile phones would give some clue as who else might have been involved. Apologizing the day of the event at the Anaheim Council of American-Islamic Relations, Farook’s brother-in-law, his sister’s husband, Farhan Khan denied knowing anything about Farook and Malik’s terrorist plot or about their radicalization.
Destroying digital data on their cell phones and personal computer shows that there was more to Farook and Malik’s plot that meets the eye. If they only planned a single episode or, if they were truly autonomous, they wouldn’t have destroyed their digital fingerprints. Judging by the size of their arsenal and bomb-making material, Farook and Malik were most likely helped by others, whether domestic or foreign sources. Whether or not they planned other attacks isn’t relevant, knowing, with a high degree of certainty, the Inland Empire Region Center massacre was a suicide mission. Surely they knew they’d martyr themselves for radial Islam in a hail of bullets. While there’s no evidence yet that Farook and Malik were aided-or-abetted by others, it’s inconceivable that they had no other terrorist contacts. Bowdich confirmed that Malik pledged loyalty to ISIS on her Facebook page Dec. 2.
Local, State and federal law enforcement officials are feverishly investigating any possible terrorist links to a so-called “terror cell” to determine whether the risk had subsided in San Bernardino. San Bernardino Police Chief Jarrod Burguan tried to reassure the press today that the terrorist threat over San Bernardion appears over for now. Handing the investigation to the FBI, Burguan acknowledges that it’s now a federal terrorism probe, requiring the resources of the U.S. government. Hitting San Bernardino, a remote community 60 miles for LA, leaves suburban, exurban and rural communities vulnerable to possible terror attacks. ISIS acknowledged today on its Website that the San Bernardino attacks were “supporters,” not active fighters, creating even more consternation. FBI officials have far greater problems tracking ISIS-inspired attacks than finding known terrorists.
White House officials have a big national security problem only two months before the Iowa Caucuses. Republicans candidates can play up the president’s reluctance to put boots-on-the-ground in Iraq and Syria to help its partners, including the Kurd’s Peshmerga fighters, root out ISIS from villages, towns and cities. Democratic front-runner former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton announced Dec. 1 she opposed, like Obama, putting U.S. combat troops in Iraq and Syria. San Bernardino’s massacre could be a game-changer, knowing that ISIS continues to inspire terrorist attacks around the globe. As long as the ISIS caliphate continues to thrive and hold onto Iraq and Syrian territory, there’s little chance of damaging ISIS’s credibility without as full-scale military assault. Leaving ISIS to flourish in safe havens in Iraq and Syria has been the terror group’s best recruitment tool.
