Islamic State-Linked Agency: Group Claims Responsibility for San Bernardino Attack

A news agency supportive of the Islamic State claimed on Friday that the San Bernardino terror attack was carried out by ISIS operatives.

Reuters reports the claim comes from the Aamaq news agency, which is noted for posting videos from inside Islamic State territory. As translated by Breitbart Jerusalem, the Aamaq news item declares, “Two supporters of the Islamic State attacked a center in a city of San Bernardino in California,” and went on to link the incident to the Paris terror attack, as well as last month’s bus bombing in Tunisia.

The Islamic State tends to claim responsibility for just about every bloody event on the planet, and it has so many fans and sycophants that it is hard to tell when an “official” claim of responsibility has been made. Some on Twitter reacted to the announcement by emphasizing that while Aamaq supports the Islamic State, they are not its official media arm:

The Islamic State and its online supporters have been praising and celebrating the massacre in San Bernardino since the news first broke, although Vocativ notes none of these postings could be construed as a formal claim of responsibility, like the one ISIS issued after the Paris attack. ISIS and its admirers got an #America_Burning hashtag going for statements such as:

“Three lions made us proud.  They are still alive.  California streets are full with soldiers with heavy weapons.  The United States is burning.”  [Note: that message was evidently issued when it was thought a third suspect was involved in the shootings.]

“God is great and he the one to be praised for that.  This is hell with God’s will.”

“God is the greatest. May god spread fear in the homes of the Crusaders.”

A claim of responsibility would be significant, even after reports that the killers swore fealty to the Islamic State during the attack. There is still work to be done before the full sickening story of the San Bernardino jihadis is known, but hopefully we can dispense with the politically-correct equivocation about how their motives were an inscrutable mystery.