FBI treating San Bernardino shooting as a counterterrorism investigation

The San Bernardino shooting on Wednesday that killed 14 and injured over a dozen more is now being investigated as a counterterrorism case due to new information about the suspected gunmen, Syed Rizwan Farook, 28, and his wife, Tashfeen Malik, 27.

While a motive is still very much unclear — and officials stress that just because a case is being investigated as counterterrorism doesn't mean that the act was, conclusively, one of terrorism — The New York Times reports that Farook was notably in touch with an individual in the United States who was recently investigated for suspected terrorism. Both Farook and Malik traveled abroad as well; Farook was an American citizen, while his wife was in the country on a Pakistani passport. David Bowdich, the assistant director of the FBI office in Los Angeles, confirmed that some of their travels were to Pakistan.

"You don't take your wife to a workplace shooting, and especially not as prepared as they were. He could have been radicalized, ready to go with some type of attack, and then had a dispute at work and decided to do something," one senior law enforcement official who had been briefed on the investigation said.

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