California shooters were of Pakistani origin; possesed arsenal of weapons, FBI probing terror links

The shooters were identified as Syed Rizwan Farook, 28, who was born in the US, and his Pakistan-born wife, Tashfeen Malik, 27.

San Bernardino: As the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) on Thursday took over the investigation into the deadliest US mass shooting since the Sandy Hook massacre three years ago, police revealed that it has recovered 12 pipe bombs huge cache of arms and ammunitions at the home of the shooters identified as a Pakistani-origin couple, parents of a six-month-old daughter.

Authorities also said that they sought to determine if the pair had links to Islamic militant groups. 

Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik who was described as his wife, were killed in a shootout with police five hours after Wednesday`s massacre at the Inland Regional Centre social services agency in the city of San Bernardino.

Addressing a press conference, San Bernardino Police Chief Jarrod Burguan said that a search of a townhouse in nearby Redlands believed used by Farook and Malik yielded flash drives, computers and cellphones.

Officials in Washington familiar with the investigation said so far there was no hard evidence of a direct connection between the shooters and any militant group abroad but that the electronics would be checked to see if the couple had been browsing on jihadist websites or social media.

Cops further said that the toll of injured have risen to 21 adding that the motive behind the violent rampage here that killed 14 people yesterday night is still unclear.

According to police, the two shooters were a married couple: Syed Rizwan Farook, 28, a former county health worker born in the United States, and Tashfeen Malik, 27, a woman described as his Pakistani-born wife.

Even as the bloodshed made it among the deadliest mass shootings in recent memory, the attack was also a rarity in another way: Mass shootings are rarely carried out by more than one attacker, and women almost never carry out such assaults.

Meanwhile, President Obama confirmed that The FBI has taken over the investigation into the California shooting incident. 

“At this stage, we do not yet know why this terrible event occurred,” Obama said during remarks at the White House.

“It is possible this was terrorist-related, but we don’t know. It is also possible this was workplace related,” he added.

Obama further said that the two suspects in the attack had additional weapons at their home in addition to the firearms used in the assault, but “we don’t know why they did it,” he said. “We don’t know at this point the extent of their plans.”

According to ShootingTracker.com, which tracks deaths by guns in America, the US has seen 355 mass shootings so far in 2015. Twenty days of 2015 saw four or more mass shootings in a single day.

In the past week, there have been six mass shootings, ShootingTracker.com reports -- including the shootout at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

The San Bernardino massacre was the second one on Wednesday alone. Earlier in the day, four people were shot at in Georgia, one of whom died.

(With Agency inputs)