California gunman’s Pak wife had pledged allegiance to IS

WASHINGTON: Tashfeen Malik, the Pakistani woman who accompanied her husband to gun down 14 people in San Bernardino, had pledged allegiance to the Islamic State (IS), US authorities revealed on Friday. If correct, it would make the incident a foreign inspired terrorist attack, with the most casualties since 9/11 on American soil and the first salvo by IS inside America.
CNN quoted three unnamed US officials as saying that Malik, using a different name, made Facebook postings pledging loyalty to IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, “as the San Bernardino attack was happening”. They did not explain how they made the discovery and did not elaborate on exactly what she posted.
Malik, 27, who is a Pakistani citizen and held a Pakistani passport, came to the US after marrying Chicago-born Pakistani-American Syed Rizwan Farook. She met the 28-year-old environmental health inspector through a matrimonial website when he was in the US and she was in Saudi Arabia. Farook helped her come to America with a K-1 fiancee visa . A co-worker of Farook’s had said he left for Saudi Arabia earlier this year and returned with a bride.
US officials confirmed that the visa was issued to her in Islamabad. It is not clear what she was doing in Saudi Arabia, much less who she was in contact with and how she got radicalised.
If the IS connection is established, many other things will also fall into place, including the extraordinary amount of ammunition and bomb making equipment the couple had in their home amid rearing a six-month old infant. US officials have said that given the manner in which the couple donned body armour and face-masks, and carried out the assault-style attack using a rented SUV, it could not possibly have been a spur of the moment workplace-related strike.
The new disclosure also puts the spotlight on the so-called “fiancee visa”, formally known as the K-1 visa. It is the subject of a recent reality show called ‘90 Day Fiance’ which offers a unique look into the world of international dating and matrimony.
Using the K-1 visa, four women and two men travel to the US to live with their overseas partners for the first time. The couples must marry before their visas expire in 90 days, or the visiting partner will have to return home. They have to overcome language barriers, culture shock and skeptical friends and family — all with a clock that starts ticking the moment they step foot on US soil.
In the California case at least, it appears the clock may have been ticking towards an IS-inspired terrorist attack.