The man suspected of killing 14 people with his wife during a shooting in San Bernardino, Calif., on Wednesday traveled to Saudi Arabia in 2014.
Syed Farook, a 28-year-old county health inspector, journeyed to the Middle Eastern country for about a month and came back to the U.S. with a wife, his coworker Patrick Baccari told the Associated Press. Baccari worked in a cubicle near Farook and also attended the banquet the couple targeted in a conference room at a center for developmentally disabled people.
The Saudi embassy in D.C. confirmed that Farook spent nine days in the country in the summer of 2014.
Farook, a U.S. citizen, returned to America in July 2014 with his then-fiance Tashfeen Malik, 27, according to David Bowdich, assistant director of the FBI’s Los Angeles field office.
It’s still unclear where else Farook may have traveled before the deadly rampage.
“We know he did go to Pakistan at one point,” Bowdich said.
Malik, who has a Pakistani passport, was in the country on a K-1 visa, which is issued to the fiancé of a U.S. citizen to enter the country.
Authorities still don’t know the couple’s motive. “There was obviously a mission here. We know that. We do not know why,” Bowdich said.
Farook and Malik killed 14 people and injured 17 others in their attack at the Inland Regional Center before they were gunned down in a police shootout.
President Barack Obama said Thursday authorities still don’t know if the mass shooting in California was related to terrorism or was workplace-related.
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