President Obama on Sunday called the San Bernardino massacre “an act of terrorism designed to kill innocent people.”
He said the married couple who committed the violence “had gone down the dark path of radicalization” but that there was no evidence yet that they were part of a larger terrorist organization.
The president also blasted the Islamic State “thugs and killers, part of a cult of death.... they account for a tiny fraction of...Muslims.”
“ISIL does not speak for Islam,” he added, urging Americans to unite and avoid discrimination.
His statements came as the investigation into the shooting rampage continued. The FBI on Saturday raided the home of one of shooter Syed Rizwan Farook’s friends as agents searched for the source of the guns used in the attack. And in Pakistan on Sunday, the interior minister said the country has launched its own investigation and offered assistance to U.S. authorities.
In San Bernardino, residents tried to get back to their routines after what may be the deadliest act of terrorism on U.S. soil since 9/11. On Saturday, many residents resolved to get on with life but said they were still anxious.
Watch Obama’s speech and see Times analysis and commentary>>
“I’m nervous,” said Fernandino Rodriguez, 39. “You hear ambulance and a firetruck sirens and you wonder: ‘What happened now?’ You’re constantly in fear.”
“I’m listening and watching for signs of trouble — sirens, even helicopters,” added Dyesha McCrumb. “That’s because I believe police still have not gotten to the bottom of this terrorist attack.”
The FBI is investigating the shooting as an act of terrorism apparently inspired by the extremist group Islamic State.
U.S. Atty. Gen. Loretta Lynch urged the public Sunday not to jump to conclusions about the motive for the attack or the couple’s ties to ISIS. She said Farook had made contact with some people the FBI was monitoring but again stressed the investigation is ongoing.
“I would caution people not to try and define either of these two individuals right now,” she said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
Obama’s address comes amid growing criticism from Republicans and even some Democrats about his policies for combating terrorism and dealing with Syria’s civil war, especially after last month’s coordinated Islamic State attacks in Paris that killed 130 people.
San Bernardino is one of several attacks in recent years, including the 2013 Boston Marathon bombings, that appear to involve “lone wolf” assailants in the United States who are inspired by terrorist groups but act independently. Experts say such cases pose a particular problem for authorities because the attackers are already in this country and are more difficult to detect than terrorists coming here from abroad.
Since taking office in 2009, Obama has only addressed the nation twice from the Oval Office, the symbol of White House power. The most recent was Aug. 31, 2010, when he announced the withdrawal of all U.S. troops from Iraq in keeping with his campaign promise to end the war there.
Five years later, that speech appears a bittersweet moment in history.
Over the last year and a half, Obama has sent about 3,500 troops back to Iraq to train and advise local security forces in the fight against Islamic State.
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Friends and relatives of Sierra Clayborn gather for her funeral at Mt. Moriah Missionary Baptist Church in South Los Angeles.
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A memorial service was held for Nicholas Thalasinos on Saturday morning at the Shiloh Messianic Congregation in Calimesa.
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A Shabbat service was part of the memorial for Nicholas Thalasinos at Shiloh Messianic Congregation in Calimesa, where Thalasinos and his wife, Jennifer, were integral parts of the congregation.
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A hired mover carries out personal items from the home of San Bernardino shooters Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik.
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Residents turn out to greet President Obama’s motorcade in San Bernardino.
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President Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama greet San Bernardino Mayor R. Carey Davis, center, and Supervisor James Ramos outside Air Force One at the San Bernardino airport on Friday night.
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President Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama leave in a motorcade, after arriving at San Bernardino International Airport, to meet privately with the families of the victims of the San Bernardino terrorist attack.
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President Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama depart Air Force One at San Bernardino International Airport.
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San Bernardino residents Ashrie Matthews, left, Leah Brown and James Matthews line the street to cheer the president’s motorcade.
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President Obama stopped in San Bernardino on Friday evening to privately visit with the families of some of the victims of the Dec. 2 terrorist attack. Ashrie Matthews, left, Leah Brown and James Matthews joined others to cheer as the president’s motorcade passed.
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Anti-Obama protester Deann D’Lean, right, holds some of the many signs she brought to a small protest. In the background, Paul Rodriguez, Jr., with America First Latinos holds a bullhorn. Protesters were out on some San Bernardino street corners voicing their opposition to the president and Islamic State.
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People continue to visit the memorial just down the street from where the terrorist attack occurred.
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Family members and friends pay their respects to Robert Adams, one of the 14 victims killed in the San Bernardino shooting, during his graveside funeral service at Montecito Memorial Park in Colton.
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Summer Adams, center, grieves at the graveside ceremony for her husband, Robert Adams, at Montecito Memorial Park in Colton.
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A mourner sits on the curb with her head in her hands during the graveside ceremony for San Bernardino shooting victim Robert Adams at Montecito Memorial Park in Colton.
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Mourners embrace at the funeral for Aurora Godoy at Calvary Chapel in Gardena on Wednesday. Godoy was one of 14 killed in the attack in San Bernardino on Dec. 2. (Michael Robinson Chavez / Los Angeles Times)
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Mourners embrace at the funeral for Aurora Godoy at Calvary Chapel in Gardena on Wednesday. Godoy was one of 14 killed in the attack in San Bernardino on Dec. 2.
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Mourners arrive for the funeral for San Bernardino shooting victim Aurora Godoy at Calvary Chapel in Gardena on Wednesday.
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Shemiran Betbadal, mother of Bennetta Betbadal, is hugged by family after funeral services at Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Rancho Cucamonga.
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Pallbearers carry the casket of Bennetta Bet-Badal during funeral services Monday at Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Rancho Cucamonga. Bet-Badal was one of the 14 people killed in the San Barnardino shooting rampage.
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The husband and children of Bennetta Bet-Badal hug Monday following her funeral services at Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Rancho Cucamonga.
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Funeral services were held for Bennetta Bet-Badal, one of the 14 people killed in the San Barnardino shooting rampage, at Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Rancho Cucamonga.
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Funeral services were held for Bennetta Bet-Badal at Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Rancho Cucamonga.
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Funeral services were held for Bennetta Bet-Badal at Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Rancho Cucamonga.
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Twelve days after the mass shooting attack at the Inland Regional Center in San Bernardino the flowers are beginning to wilt but hugs and paryers are still in abundance.
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Gwen Rodgers, assistant pastor at the Church of Living God, hugs Cindy Quinones, cousin of the slain Aurora Godoy, during a vigil at the makeshift memorial for the victims of the terrorist attacks in San Bernardino, Calif.
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Visitors arrive to pay their respects at the makeshift memorial outside the fenced off Inland Regional Center, in the background, the site of the deadly terrorist attacks, in San Bernardino, Calif.
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San Trinh, the longtime boyfriend of Tin Nguyen, 31, one of the victims of the San Bernardino terrorist attack, is consoled by family members as Nguyen’s casket is loaded into a hearse at St. Barbara’s Catholic Church in Santa Ana.
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Cousins of Tin Nguyen -- Trang Le, left, Tram Le and Krystal Le -- hold onto some of her personal items and cry as they watch her casket being lowered into the ground at her funeral at the Good Shepherd Cemetery in Huntington Beach.
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Pallbearers stand guard over the casket of the Tin Nguyen, a Cal State Fullerton graduate, at the start of her memorial service at St. Barbara’s Catholic Church in Santa Ana.
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Van Thanh Nguyen shouts her daughter’s name during her funeral at the Good Shepherd Cemetary in Huntington Beach. Tin Nguyen was 31.
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Family members and friends write messages on the side of the Tin Nguyen’s burial vault.
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Van Thanh Nguyen places her hand on her daughter’s casket while surrounded by friends and family.
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The casket of San Bernardino shooting victim Isaac Amanios leaves the St. Minas Orthodox Church during his funeral service in Colton.
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Two women cry during Isaac Amanios’ funeral service at the St. Minas Orthodox Church in Colton. Amanios, 60, is survived by his wife and three children.
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Funeral goers cry during Isaac Amanios’ service. Amanios had shared a cubicle with the male shooter at the San Bernardino County Public Health Department.
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Frineds and family stand during the funeral service for Isaac Amanios.
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Trenna Meins, center with daughters after the funeral for her husband Damian Meins at St. Catherine Of Alexandria in Riverside.
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Pallbearers escort the casket of Damian Meins at St. Catherine of Alexandria church in Riverside.
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Mourners gather at St. Catherine Of Alexandria in Riverside on Friday morning for the funeral of Damian Meins, one of 14 people killed in the San Bernardino shooting.
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Trenna Meins places a cross on her husband’s coffin. Damien Meins was killed in a terrorist attack at the Inland Regional Center in San Bernardino.
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Mourners gather for the funeral of Damian Meins.
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Community members sing Amazing Grace during a candlelight vigil for Nicholas Thalasinos and the 13 other San Bernardino shooting victims at Fleming Park in Colton, Calif.
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COLTON, CA - DECEMBER 10, 2015: Jennifer Thalasinos,middle, fights back tears during a candlelight vigil for her slain husband Nicholas Thalasinos and the 13 other San Bernardino shooting victims at Fleming Park on December 10, 2015 in Colton, California.(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times) (Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)
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A portrait of Yvette Velasco, one of the victims of the deadly San Bernardino terrorist attacks, is placed at her funeral service at Forest Lawn Memorial Park, in Covina, Calif.
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Robert Velasco, father of Yvette Velasco, consoles a family member during Yvette’s funeral service at Forest Lawn Memorial Park, in Covina, Calif.
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COVINA, CALIF.--December 10, 2015 - The coffin of San Bernardino shooting victim, Yvette Velasco, is carried to the hearse following a private viewing for family at Forest Lawn Mortuary in Covina, Calif.
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An FBI dive team searches a lake located about two miles north of the Inland Regional Center in connection with last week’s terrorist attack and shootout that left the two attackers and 14 victims dead.
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An FBI dive team searches a lake near the Inland Regional Center in connection with last week’s terrorist attack.
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A memorial to victims of the terrorist attack in San Bernardino continues to grow near the Inland Regional Center, where the attack took place during a holiday party.
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One week after the mass shooting at the Inland Regional Center in San Bernardino, the public is posting signs of gratitude and thanks like this one found at the San Bernardino Police Department.
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Family members and survivors paid their respects with a moment of silence at 11 a.m., exactly one week after the shooting occured at the Inland Regional Center.
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Customers wait for the doors to open at Turner’s Outdoorsman in San Bernardino Wednesday morning.
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Speaking during a Dec. 8 news conference, dispatcher Michelle Rodriguez of the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department becomes emotional as she recounts the events of the deadly San Bernardino attack.
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Trenna Meins, right, of Riverside, hugs friends and family during a vigil t the Riverside County Health Complex for her husband, Damian Meins, and 13 others killed in the San Bernardino shooting rampage.
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On Dec. 8, people bring flowers, candles and remembrances to a memorial to the San Bernardino shooting victims near the Inland Regional Center, the scene of the attack.
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Frank Cobet of the Get Loaded gun store in Grand Terrace shows a customer an AR-15 rifle on Dec. 8.
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Monica Gonzales relights candles Tuesday morning at a memorial for victims of the shooting rampage in San Bernardino.
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Community members and students gather for a Dec. 7 vigil on the Cal State San Bernardino campus to remember the victims of the deadly attack in the city.
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Patricia Corona of Colton, Calif., holds her children, Dejah Salvato, 7, and Brandon Salvato, 9, as they attend a Dec. 7 vigil at the San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors headquarters to pay tribute to the victims of the city’s recent mass shootings.
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A prayer is said at the San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors headquarters to honor the victms of the city’s recent mass shootings.
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FBI agents put up a screen to block the view of onlookers as they investigate the building at the Inland Regional Center in San Bernardino.
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Syed Farook, father of the suspect in the San Bernardino mass shooting, Syed Rizwan Farook, arrives at his home to a swarm of reporters in Corona, Calif.
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Roses are laid at the entrance to San Bernardino County headquarters as thousands of employees returned to work Monday, five days after Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik opened fire on a gathering of his co-workers, killing 14 people and wounding 21.
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Trudy Raymundo, director the the San Bernardino County Department of Public Health, is surrounded by San Bernardino County supervisors as she addresses the media during a press conference Monday.
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John Ramos of Riverside pays his respects Monday at a makeshift memorial site honoring Wednesday’s shooting victims in San Bernardino.
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Claudia Zaragoza writes a message on a banner at the ever-growing memorial site to the victims of the recent mass shootings near the Inland Regional Center.
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Caroline Campbell, from left, Jessie Campbell and Rylee Ponce embrace as they pay their respects at the ever-growing memorial site for the victims of the recent mass shootings.
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Caroline Campbell embraces her son, David Malijan, 6, as they pay their respects at the ever-growing memorial site to the victims of the recent mass shootings near the Inland Regional Center.
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The Zafarullah family of Chino, originally of Pakistan, watches Obama’s address. Arshia, at left, is holding her 18-month-old nephew, Sohail Ahmed.
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One of several signs supporting the city of San Bernardino hang above the 215 Freeway on Sunday evening.
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Members of the Muslim community, such as Khadija Zadeh, lit candles and wrote messages to the families of victims of the San Bernardino shooting rampage during a memorial service at the Islamic Community Center of Redlands in Loma Linda.
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Ajarat Bada prays during a memorial service at the Islamic Community Center of Redlands in Loma Linda to remember the victims of the San Bernardino shooting rampage.
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Alaa Alsafadi, center, holds her son, Yousef, 4, during a memorial service at the Islamic Community Center of Redlands in Loma Linda.
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Riders from the Christian Motorcycle Association in San Bernardino pray at a growing makeshift memorial for San Bernardino shooting victims near the Inland Regional Center.
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A candlelight vigil dubbed “United We Stand,” took place at Granada Hills Charter High School on Saturday evening. The event was organized by Muslim Youth Los Angeles and Devonshire Area in Partnership.
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Ryan Reyes, boyfriend of San Bernardino shooting victim Larry Daniel Kaufman, hugs members of Dar Al Uloom Al Islamiyah of America mosque who brought roses to a memorial at the Sante Fe Dam on Saturday.
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A bullet hole in the window of a pick up truck where the shootout took place on San Bernardino Avenue.
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A composite photo of the 14 victims of the San Bernardino shooting rampage. (Courtesy of family / Los Angeles Times)
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People kneel in prayer for victims of the recent mass shootings at the Inland Regional Center, in San Bernardino.
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After sunset, people continue to arrive at the memorial site for the victims of the recent mass shootings at the Inland Regional Center in San Bernardino.
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The scene after landlord Doyle Miller opened the doors and allowed the news media inside the Redlands town home where Syed Rizwan Farook and Tafsheen Malik, suspects of the deadly the recent mass shootings in San Bernardino, lived.
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Josie Ramirez-Herndon, center, and her daughter, Chelsie Ramirez, bottom left, join other community members as they pray during a candlelight vigil.
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Fabio Ahumada, a San Bernardino EMT, attends a vigil at San Manuel Stadium
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A couple embrace at the candlelight vigil to honor the victims of the mass shootings at the Inland Regional Center.
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Angel Meler-Baumgartner 11, who was a member of the Inland Regional Center, where the shooting occurred, attends a vigil at San Manuel Stadium for the victims.
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The Ahmadiyya Muslim Community USA held a press conference and prayer vigil at Baitul Hameed Mosque in Chino. The group denounced the massacre.
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Amy Mahmood, right, holds hands with a woman named Shenaz during the vigil at San Manuel Stadium.
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Ryan Reyes, center, breaks down after finding out his boyfriend of three years, Daniel Kaufman, 42, was one of those killed during Wednesday’s mass shooting at the Inland Regional Center in San Bernardino.
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Ryan Reyes holds an image of his boyfriend Daniel Kaufman who was confirmed as one of the 14 victims of Wednesday’s mass shooting at the Inland Regional Center in San Bernardino.
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Larry Jones, left, pastor of Crossover Outreach Church; Dr. Jeannetta Million, pastor of Victoria’s Believers Church; and Arnold Morales, pastor of King of Glory Church, pray for the victims and those involved in the mass shooting in San Bernardino.
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A coalition of church leaders comes together to pray for the victims and those involved in the San Bernardino shootings.
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FBI investigators inside the suspects’ Redlands home on Thursday morning.
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The investigation continues Thursday morning on San Bernardino Avenue, where two suspects in the mass shooting at the Inland Regional Center died in a shootout with police.
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Law enforcement stands guard at a police line as investigators work at a Redlands home after the San Bernardino attack.
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A SWAT team stands guard with a rifle pointed at a home that is being investigated by police after today’s San Bernardino’s mass shootings.
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Farhan Khan, second from right, who was identified as the brother-in-law of San Bernardino shooting suspect Syed Rizwan Farook, joins religious leaders during a news conference at the Council of American Islamic Relations in Anaheim.
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San Bernardino County sheriff’s deputies draw guns behind a minivan on Richardson St. during a search for suspects involved in the mass shooting of 14 people at the Inland Regional Center in San Bernardino.
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Marie Cabrera, Sonya Gonzalez and Christine Duran, all of San Bernardino, pray after the mass shooting in San Bernardino.
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A woman and a man enter the Rudy C Hernandez Community Center after they and other people, who were at the scene of a mass shooting, arrived by bus to be reunited with their familys.
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Emergency personnel bring in a wounded person into Loma University Medical Center after the shooting in San Bernardino on Wednesday.
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A SWAT unit is on the move in San Bernardino.
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A member of the San Manual Fire Department takes the names of people evacuated from the scene of a mass shooting in San Bernardino before they are loaded onto buses and taken away from the area.
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Sheriff’s department SWAT members deploy on Richardson Street in San Bernardino on Wednesday.
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Sheriff’s department SWAT members deploy near San Bernardino Avenue and Richardson Street in San Bernardino on Wednesday.
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Evacuated workers join in a circle to pray on the San Bernardino Golf Course across the street from where a shooting occurred at the Inland Regional Center.
(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times) He is under intense pressure to further escalate the effort to break a yearlong military stalemate with the group, which continues to control vast amounts of territory, including key cities in Iraq and Syria.
Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter has announced that about 200 more special operations troops would be sent to Iraq to conduct raids and help step up airstrikes.
Although the militants have lost ground in recent months due to counterattacks and intense bombing, they have expanded their global reach by conducting a deadly attack in Paris, downing a Russian passenger jet over Egypt and building up a new stronghold in Libya.
In the fiercely contested 2016 presidential race, Republican candidates have excoriated Obama’s counter-terrorism efforts as weak and ineffective, and called for stopping or restricting immigration into the U.S. of Syrian refugees and others.
In a statement announcing the speech, set for 8 p.m. EST, the White House said Obama will seek to reassure the public that the government is taking effective steps to ensure the nation’s safety.
Obama “will reiterate his firm conviction that [Islamic State] will be destroyed,” a White House spokesman said.
Authorities now believe Farook and his wife, Tashfeen Malik, were inspired by militant appeals on the Internet.
Earlier Saturday, after Obama had been briefed by Lynch, FBI Director James B. Comey and other senior law enforcement and intelligence officials, the White House said authorities still had not turned up any evidence indicating the couple were part of a terrorist network.
FBI technicians are trying to reconstruct their digital footprints from partially destroyed computer hard drives, cellphones and their online accounts.
They also are searching for signs the couple may have communicated using encryption to hide their messages.
The couple had not drawn the attention of the FBI or other federal authorities that seek to identify and track potential terrorists, even though Farook had used the Internet to make contact with people from the Shabab, an Islamist militant group based in Somalia, and Al Nusra Front, an Al Qaeda-linked group in Syria, a federal law enforcement official said.
Malik was a onetime “modern girl” who became deeply religious during college and began posting extremist messages on Facebook after arriving in the U.S., a family member in Pakistan said in an interview with The Times. The relative in Malik’s hometown of Karor Lal Esan, who asked to not be identified, said Malik’s postings on Facebook were a source of concern for her family.
“She started taking part in religious activities and also started asking women in the family and the locality to become good Muslims,” the family member said.
Two students who attended university with Malik confirmed that during her time at Bahauddin Zakariya University in Multan, Pakistan, she began attending Al Huda, a chain of modern institutes of Islamic education which mainly focuses on women with the stated objective of “bringing them back to their religious roots.”
“She used to go to attend sessions in Al Huda almost every day,” said a fellow student, who did not want to be identified. “She was not too close to any class fellow. She never shared her thoughts on religious issues with her fellow classmates in the department of pharmacology, where Malik studied. “We all are in a state of shock.”
Experts said that the majority of women who attend Al Huda institutes, located in large cities, wear the hijab, a scarf covering worn by some Muslim women to cover the hair on the top of their head. They are usually well-heeled. These institutes use the group-isolating Islamic preaching session (called ‘dars’) activity to reinvent personal identity through ‘discovery’ of Islam.
Dr Ayesha Siddiqa, a Pakistani security analyst, said Al Huda institutes teach women “fundamentalist” ideas, though it is not necessarily a jihadist curriculum. “I call Al Huda the fourth generation of religious seminaries. It does not promote use of violence but takes you closer to the red line. Now, it is a personal decision to cross the red line and take or give one’s life.”
She said that the impact of such institutes is widespread, because a family that has a child going to a seminary has an impact on the thinking of other members of the family. “People would be familiar with, for instance, a daughter going to an Al Huda changing the mother and eventually the entire household. This dynamic is mirrored in more traditional seminaries as well.”
For the last several days, supporters of Islamic State have used Twitter to praise the lethal attack in San Bernardino, but no official statement from the group appeared until Saturday.
U.S. intelligence analysts have no reason to doubt the authenticity of an Islamic State online broadcast Saturday that claimed last week’s rampage was carried out by supporters, an American official said.
The broadcast on the group’s official radio station said of the couple, “We pray to God to accept them as martyrs,” but did not claim Islamic State had played a role in planning the attack.
Farook’s father told the Italian newspaper La Stampa on Sunday that his son agreed with the ideology of ISIS leaders and was “obsessed” with Israel.
But a family representatives said Sunday afternoon that the shooter’s father did not recall the comments he made the the publication.
Hussam Ayloush, executive director of CAIR in the greater Los Angeles area, said the father, like the rest of the family, is “dealing with a lot of stress.”
“He’s on medication,” he said. “He doesn’t recall saying that.”
Neither Ayloush nor family attorney Mohammad Abuershaid would specify what the medication was or what condition it was used to treat.
The attorney said the family wants to “cooperate as much as they can” with the federal investigation.
Ayloush said that when he asked the father about the interview this morning, he said, “Which interview? ... I didn’t speak to any media ... I didn’t say any of that.”
Meanwhile, the investigation into the San Bernardino attack continued. On Saturday, FBI agents raided the home of a friend of Farook’s as the agency tried to determine whether the man had purchased two of the semiautomatic rifles used in the massacre, according to a law enforcement source.
The source, who asked to remain anonymous because the case is ongoing, said the FBI was seeking to interview Enrique Marquez Jr., who lived at the home, though it was not clear he had anything to do with the violence or knew what Farook did with the guns.
Neighbors said Marquez and Farook appeared to be good friends. Farook, his mother and siblings lived next door for several years before moving out a few months ago.
Family members and friends said they were stunned by the rampage, saying the couple showed no outward signs of radicalism.
They met on a dating website. The couple were married in Islam’s holy city of Mecca in Saudi Arabia last year. The Saudi Embassy in Washington confirmed that Farook spent nine days in the kingdom in the summer of 2014. The couple’s daughter was born in May, according to records.
Farook and Malik had amassed an arsenal of 2,000 9-millimeter rounds, 2,500 .223-caliber rifle rounds and “hundreds of tools” that could have been used to make explosive devices, authorities said.
The couple fired at least 65 shots when they stormed a party at the Inland Regional Center, where about 80 of Malik’s co-workers at the San Bernardino Department of Public Health had gathered. Twelve of the 14 dead and 18 of the 21 injured were county employees, police said.
Hours later, the couple exchanged gunfire with police on San Bernardino streets, in a battle that launched bullets into homes and terrified residents.
paloma.esquivel@latimes.com
joseph.tanfani@latimes.com
louis.sahagun@latimes.com
sarah.parvini@latimes.com
Tanfani reported from Washington, Esquivel from Riverside and Sahagun and Parvini from Los Angeles. Times staff writers Richard Winton, Tony Barboza, Marisa Gerber, Rong-Gong Lin II, Cindy Carcamo and Dexter Thomas in Los Angeles; and Brian Bennett, Richard A. Serrano and David S. Cloud in Washington; and Aoun Sahi in Islamabad, Pakistan, contributed to this report.
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