Posted on 12/05/2015 7:03:33 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
ISLAMABAD - Tashfeen Malik - who the FBI says pledged allegiance on Facebook to the Islamic State before helping her husband kill 14 people in San Bernardino, Calif. - was born in Saudi Arabia to a middle-class Pakistani family mainly associated with agriculture or private businesses.
Her father, Gulzak Malik, previously lived in the Karor Lal Esan locality of District Layyah in Pakistan's tumultuous Southern Punjab province. Tashfeen Malik, 27 years old when she was killed Wednesday in a rented SUV in a shootout with law enforcement, went to that province several years ago to study pharmacy in Multan city - known for its mangos that are exported worldwide. She often visited Layyah while a student, neighbors said.
Government critics long have demanded a full-fledged military operation against the Layyah area - about 300 miles from Pakistan's capital here - which they contend is a known breeding ground for terrorists and militant training centers:
- Saifur Rehman Saifi, a terrorist credited with pioneering suicide attacks in Pakistan after 9/11, joined the militancy in his native Layyah. After he was killed in Afghanistan, his friends brought his body to the city for burial.
- Masood Azhar, the founder of the militant Jaish-e-Muhammad organization, is a native of Bahawalpur city in the same Southern Punjab region. He is the most-wanted terrorist in India, which released him in exchange for prisoners on a hijacked Indian airliner in 1999.
- Malik Ishaq, the former leader of the globally known militant group Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, was killed this year in Muzaffargarh, about 62 miles from Layyah.
Data collected by the South Asia Terrorism Portal shows that there are about 57 extremist and terror groups in the Punjab province alone.
Neighbors of Gulzak Malik said though he had moved to Saudi Arabia about three decades ago, he maintained his connections with Southern Punjab. He was believed to be a moderate Muslim when he left, but while in Saudi Arabia, neighbors say, it seemed as though he and his family changed.
Muhammad Fakhar, who lived in the Maliks' neighborhood and has known them a long time, expressed shock during an interview with the Tribune-Review over Tashfeen Malik's involvement in the terrorist attack.
"I never knew she could be so dangerous," Fakhar, 33, said of the automatic rifles, semi-automatic handguns, thousands of rounds of ammunition and numerous homemade and remote-control bombs she and her husband Syed Rizwan Farook, 28, brought to bear against civilians and police.
As investigators piece together details of the deadly terrorist attack in California, Fakhar said most of the Maliks' family members in Layyah have relocated either for security reasons or to avoid questioning by security personnel.
The FBI says it has recovered Tashfeen Malik's photos with hardline cleric Maulana Abdul Aziz of Islamabad, who had announced open support of the Islamic State.
A U.S. diplomat in the United Kingdom has met with Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, currently in London, to brief him about Tashfeen Malik's terrorism link.
Malik's role in the San Bernardino massacre has reinforced the stance of numerous Pakistani politicians and security analysts who have been demanding that the government launch a military offensive against the militant training centers operating in the region.
The root causes of the militancy in the region are mainly poverty and illiteracy due to the Pakistani government's lack of attention to the poorest region of Punjab, which lacks development, clean drinking water, quality education and health facilities.
During the 2014-15 fiscal year, the Punjab government spent less than 40 billion rupees (about $380 million) out of 104 billion rupees (about $987 million) allocated for development projects in the Southern region. The region also produces a major chunk of Pakistan's cotton crop.
Ishtiaq Ahmed, an Islamabad-based reporter, is one of two Pakistani journalists the Tribune-Review hosted for a month last year in a professional partnership program through the International Center for Journalists.
"...The two suspects behind Wednesday's attack, Syed Farook and Tashfeen Malik, were not on any government watch list, officials say. Evidence collected by the FBI after the couple was killed in a shootout with police suggests they were not connected to ISIS or any other network or local cell, Director James Comey said on Friday......
Farook was also reportedly in contact with terror suspects known to the federal government. But the FBI has dismissed any speculation that that should have caused them to take notice.
"I would urge you not to make too much of that," Comey said on Friday..."
Yet Malik passed the “vetting” process with flying colors.
How we can protect our families? Keep ISIS and Obama's Syrians out of America, now.
If that fails:
Does anyone know where Obama went in Pakistan during his college era jaunt?
The FBI says it has recovered Tashfeen Malik's photos with hardline cleric Maulana Abdul Aziz of Islamabad, who had announced open support of the Islamic State.
The radical cleric building a militia in the heart of Islamabad
" He is one of the most dangerous men in Pakistan and is supposed to be in police detention.
Instead, as several thousand hardline Muslim worshippers knelt in prayer at the Red Mosque in the heart of Islamabad, the voice of Maulana Abdul Aziz called out over them defiantly.
Seven years ago, the radical cleric led heavily armed al-Qaeda gunmen in a bloody siege at the Red Mosque, or Lal Masjid in Urdu, which left more than a hundred children, soldiers and militants dead.
The brutal denouement, including the killing of his brother and son, set off a wave of Taliban suicide bombings which struck at the heart of Pakistan's military establishment.
Now Pakistanâs intelligence services believe he is building a new militia, grabbing land for more madrassas and preparing for another tilt at forcing the country to adopt strict Islamic law. Eyewitnesses said they had seen 30 to 40 heavily armed men from the militant group Sipah-e-Sahaba inside the mosque........."
Have you noticed how everybody in the reporting business avoids mentioning the capital of Pakistan by its name, ISLAMABAD. I can only think the reason why is so they don’t have to repeatedly lie and say it has nothing to do with islam.....just like ISIS doesn’t, either.
Supposedly it was just a stopover on his way to/from (the story varies) Indonesia to visit his mother, and it wasn’t in either of his two books. It wasn’t known at all until a 2008 interview.
Eventually, we will find out they we were warned...just like Boston.
I'm sure wiki is searching their files.
Can't believe a damn thing the government says.
Damn that is one homely woman. No wonder they make their women dress in garbage bags.
Yet Malik passed the "vetting" process with flying colors.
So will 10,000 ISISyrian "refugees".
Has anyone seen pictures inside the place they were making bombs? I want to know if the FBI failed to dust for fingerprints. They didn’t bother in the apartment even while knowing a lot of ME men were going back and forth to it.
I am convinced someone high up is trying to cover something up. You can’t be that incompetent to fail to dust for fingerprints in a mass shooting involving Radical Muslims. It has to be intentional. It has to be based on someone with high authority.
All these prime targets and nobody with any stones to take out the trash.
Have you noticed how everybody in the reporting business avoids mentioning the capital of Pakistan by its name, ISLAMABAD. I can only think the reason why is so they do not have to repeatedly lie and say it has nothing to do with islam.....just like ISIS does not, either.
Loretta Lynch described the terrorist attack as a "Wonderful opportunity". Why would they want to identify and apprehend people who might provide them with more of these wonderful opportunities?
Where are woman parents? I think they will come out and will blame guys family. Why they are still quiet is surprising? Who will do last rites of this woman?
My favorite part of the apartment footage was a reporter showing a bin with shredded paper in it. What the heck.
That question seems ever more important.
So was the Sears package RC toys?
“”I would urge you not to make too much of that,” Comey said on Friday””
I hadn’t heard Comey say that - getting ready to back down for his boss, I guess? Will anything surprise us about this investigation?
NOPE...like obozo said, “transparent”. VERY!
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