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Female shooter behind San Bernardino massacre pledged allegiance to ISIS leader

CNN reported Friday that the woman who shot and helped killed 14 people in Southern California had pledged allegiance to an ISIS leader.

Tashfeen Malik (Twitter Photo/@ABC)...

Tashfeen Malik (Twitter Photo/@ABC)

(Twitter Photo/@ABC)

A U.S. law enforcement official said Friday that the woman who helped her husband shoot and kill 14 people in Southern California had pledged allegiance to an ISIS leader.

Officials said that Tashfeen Malik had posted her fidelity to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi on a Facebook account under another name.

However, officials said it does not appear Malik nor her husband, Syed Rizwan Farook, had any contact with ISIS leaders. Instead, it appears the couple was inspired by the terror group.

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“This is looking more and more like self-radicalization,” a law enforcement official said.

It is possible that other people may have influenced their radical views, including a person or persons who Malik may have had contact with online or over the phone.

A federal official said Farook has “overseas communications and associations,” but it’s not yet clear how relevant they are to the shootings. “We don’t know yet what they mean,” the official said.

Malik and Farook, were killed in a shootout with authorities Wednesday, after they rushed into a holiday banquet in San Bernardino, California and shot and killed 14 people.

“It just doesn’t make sense for these two to be able to act like some kind of Bonnie and Clyde or something,” Farook family attorney David S. Chesley told CNN’s Chris Cuomo. “It’s just ridiculous. It doesn’t add up.”

The Federal Bureau of Investigation officially branded the shooting as an act of terrorism on Friday.

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