AFP, SAN BERNARDINO, United States: Members of the Arab and Muslim communities in the United States said Thursday they feared a backlash, as details emerged of the Muslim couple who shot dead 14 people in California.
One organization will meet officials with the Department of Homeland Security on Friday to assess safety measures after the attack that left 14 dead and 21 wounded in San Bernardino, a city about an hour’s drive east of Los Angeles with a large Arab and Muslim population.
“There absolutely is a fear that there could be a backlash and that’s the reality we live in,” said Abed Ayoub, legal and policy director for the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, a civil rights group that will hold the talks.
Ayoub said that while there had been no reports of attacks in retaliation for the armed assault Wednesday by Syed Farook, 28, and his wife Tashfeen Malik, 27, it was essential for the community to remain vigilant.
“We need to stay cautious given the atmosphere and what happened in Paris a few weeks ago and the fallout from that,” he said, referring to the terror attacks in France that left 130 people dead and were claimed by the extremist Islamic State group.
Muslim leaders and residents in San Bernardino reacted to Wednesday’s shootings at a social services center in the city with shock and disbelief.
Several US media outlets said law enforcement officials believe Farook had become radicalized and had contact with known terrorism suspects overseas.
However, the imam at the mosque that Farook attended denied that.
“We never saw a sign of radicalization,” Mahmood Nadvi, 39, an imam at the Dar Al Uloom Al Islamiyah mosque in San Bernardino, told AFP.
“If someone becomes nuts, you don’t represent the religion anymore.”
He said the mosque had received a threatening message on its voicemail hours after the attack and has asked police to provide additional security ahead of Friday prayers.
Gasser Shehata, 42, said he was convinced Farook’s actions were linked to a work-related dispute—which is one line police are looking at—rather than his religious beliefs.
Another report adds: A US-born Muslim who along with his wife gunned down 14 people in California may have been radicalized and had been in contact with known terrorism suspects, news reports say.
The FBI, which has cautioned it was too early to link the attack to terrorism, has taken charge of the investigation into Wednesday’s mass shooting in San Bernardino.
Agents were combing through evidence to determine what prompted Syed Farook, 28, and his 27-year-old Pakistani wife Tashfeen Malik to carry out the rampage that also left 21 people wounded.
Law enforcement officials quoted by The New York Times Thursday night said the FBI was treating the shooting as a potential terrorist act, but the agency was far from concluding it was and the motive remains unclear.
CNN, quoting officials, said Farook had been in contact with known terror suspects overseas and had become radicalized after marrying Malik in Saudi Arabia last year, although an imam at a local mosque he attended said Farook showed no signs of that.
The FBI—who were scouring cell phones and a computer hard drive of the couple—had evidence that Farook had communicated with extremists domestically and abroad a few years ago, the Times said, citing congressional officials briefed on the investigation.