Washington: The couple who carried out the deadly California massacre that claimed 14 lives may have been radicalised to commit an act of terror, President Barack Obama said today, asserting that Americans will not be terrorised.
Obama also renewed his call to for tightening gun control measures.
The FBI has identified Syed Rizwan Farook, 28, a Pakistani-American, and his wife Tashfeen Malik, 27, a Pakistani national — as having carried out the deadly massacre in San Bernardino.
The couple were killed by police in an exchange of fire on Wednesday after they were chased down following their assault in which 14 people were killed.
“It is entirely possible that these two attackers were radicalised to commit this act of terror. And if so, it would underscore a threat we’ve been focused on for years — the danger of people succumbing to violent extremist ideologies,” Obama said in his weekly web and radio address to the nation.
This is for the first time that the US President has conceded that the deadliest shooting in recent years may have been a result of radicalisation, a fear long dreaded by US law enforcement agencies after the 2008 Mumbai terror attack in which a radicalised American national played a key role.