Obama to make primetime address after California attack

WASHINGTON, USA – President Barack Obama will make a rare primetime address to the nation Sunday, December 6, laying out how he will keep Americans safe and defeat the Islamic State group, days after 14 people were shot dead in California.

Obama declared Saturday that the United States “will not be terrorized,” as ISIS praised the couple behind a mass shooting in San Bernardino as “soldiers” of its self-proclaimed caliphate.

“We are Americans. We will uphold our values – a free and open society,” Obama said in his weekly address.

Investigators are combing over evidence and looking into the background of Syed Farook, 28, and his 29-year-old Pakistani wife Tashfeen Malik, the pair who opened fire Wednesday at a social services center.

The FBI said federal agents raided a property in Riverside, California, but declined to provide the address.

NBC News reported that the FBI had searched the home of Enrique Marquez, a friend of Farook’s who originally bought the assault rifles used in the shooting but who is not considered a suspect.

“I heard the windows crashing, the garage door being torn, doors being broken down … they were forcing their way in,” neighbor Freddy Escamilla told Agence France-Presse.

‘Destructive ideology’

In his address from the Oval Office on Sunday at 8:00 pm (0100 GMT Monday), Obama will try to reassure Americans in the wake of the shooting, which the FBI is investigating as a possible act of terrorism.

If proven to be terror-related, it would be the deadliest such assault on American soil since the September 11, 2001 attacks.

Obama last gave an Oval Office address in August 2010 to mark the end of US combat operations in Iraq.

In addition to an update on the probe, Obama will “discuss the broader threat of terrorism, including the nature of the threat, how it has evolved, and how we will defeat it,” the White House said.

“He will reiterate his firm conviction that ISIL (ISIS) will be destroyed and that the United States must draw upon our values – our unwavering commitment to justice, equality and freedom – to prevail over terrorist groups that use violence to advance a destructive ideology.”

Top security officials have indicated that the couple had been radicalized. But the White House and the FBI say there are no signs they were part of a larger group or terrorist cell.

In an English radio broadcast, IS praised the two as “soldiers of the caliphate” and martyrs, but did not specifically say they were members of the group.

The heavily armed pair, who also wounded 21 in their attack, died in a shootout with police after a manhunt.

The rampage was the worst in the United States in three years and revived impassioned debate on gun control in a country where such mass killings have become routine.

The New York Times published a front-page editorial – the first since 1920 – calling for an end to “the gun epidemic in America.”

In contrast, the president of Liberty University, a conservative Christian school, urged students to get permits to carry concealed weapons on campus.

“I’ve always thought if more good people had concealed carry permits, then we could end those Muslims before they walked in,” Jerry Falwell Jr. said at the school’s convocation to loud cheering.

Quiet couple

Authorities say Malik and Farook, who was US-born, carefully planned their attack.

David Bowdich, the assistant FBI director in charge of the Los Angeles office, said investigators were examining a Facebook posting in which Malik is believed to have pledged allegiance to IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, made around the time of the attack.

The family’s attorneys said that while the two were devout Muslims, there was no hint they had become radicalized.

Relatives have been at a loss to explain what triggered the killing spree, describing them as a quiet couple who kept to themselves.

They had a six-month-old daughter, whom they left with Farook’s mother before the shooting.

“How can he leave his only child, you know? And how could the mother do this?” one of Farook’s sisters, Saira Khan, told The New York Times.

‘New approach needed’

Washington has long warned of the threat of homegrown, self-radicalized extremists.

“We have moved to an entirely new phase in the global terrorist threat and in our homeland security efforts,” Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson told the Times.

Terrorists have “in effect outsourced attempts to attack our homeland. We’ve seen this not just here but in other places,” he added.

“This requires a whole new approach, in my view.”

Donald Trump, the 2016 Republican presidential frontrunner, gave little doubt as to how he would deal with any terror threat from within.

“I would handle it so tough, you don’t want to hear,” CNN quoted him as saying. – Peter Stebbings, with Jocelyne Zablit in Los Angeles, AFP/Rappler.com