FBI officials have reportedly revealed that Enrique Marquez, a convert to Islam who purchased the rifles used in the San Bernardino terror attack, had plotted with Syed Farook in 2012 to carry out a similar attack to those that Farook and wife Tashfeen Malik carried out last week.
The FBI told Breitbart News, “We have not commented on the ongoing investigation in response to news reports. At this time, no one has been charged in connection with the case.”
However, CNN reports, based on official sources, that Marquez, “the former neighbor and friend of Farook, told investigators that both men conceived an attack in 2012 also in California, but they abruptly abandoned the plan.”
According to CNN, Marquez told investigators that part of the reason the two didn’t carry out their plans was that around that time ,they were spooked by unrelated FBI arrests of four local men charged with attempting to travel abroad to carry out jihad.
Marquez was the legal purchaser of two AR-15 variants used in the San Bernardino terror attacks. He is not yet a suspect in those attacks, though CNN reports are unsure whether he is talking about the 2012 attack to cover up a possible role in last week’s attack.
CNN also reports:
Marquez converted to Islam and attended mosque sermons on and off for a couple years, said Azmi Hasan, who has served as facility manager of the Islamic Society of Corona-Norco since 2000 in Corona, California.
Marquez attended sermons by himself but stopped coming about two years ago. Syed Rizwan Farook’s sister and brother-in-law also attended the mosque but that he’d never seen Marquez in their company, Hasan said.
The Los Angeles Times also reports that Marquez was married to Farook’s brother’s wife’s sister (i.e. his sister-in-law’s sister).
Last Friday, Breitbart News reported that San Bernardino attacker Farook attended the Dar Al Aloom Al Islamyah mosque, but mosque leaders tried to distance themselves from Farook during a press conference. They repeatedly emphasized that Farook stopped attending the mosque a few months back. The mosque leaders directed further press questions to the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR).
When asked by Breitbart News whether the FBI had inquired into others in the mosque’s community, the repeated, adamant reply was, ‘No comment.”
Marquez, whom U.S. officials had difficulty contacting after the attack, has since been answering some questions for the FBI according to FBI officials. Marquez is the last known purchaser of the two AR-15 variant rifles. Officials continue to state to news outlets, including Breitbart News, that the nature of Marquez’s transfer of the two weapons to the attackers is something they are questioning, but have said that they do not yet know.
An official with the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) told Breitbart News that since the FBI has declared the case a terror investigation, the flow of information is more restricted.
On Sunday evening, speaking to the nation from the Oval Office, President Barack Obama said there was no evidence of a conspiracy, at home or abroad, between Farook and Malik on the one hand, and other individuals on the other. That assertion has now been thrown into doubt.
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