미국 로스앤젤레스(LA) 동부 샌버나디노 시에서 발생해 35명의 사상자를 낸 총기난사 사건의 범인 사이드 파룩(28)이 수니파 극단주의 무장단체인 "'이슬람국가'(IS)의 창설을 지지했다"고 그의 부친이 6일(현지시간)자 인터뷰에서 주장했다.
파키스탄 출신인 부친 파룩은 이날 미국에서 이탈리아 일간 라 스탐파와 한 인터뷰에서 "아들이 IS 지도자인 아부 바크르 알바그다디의 사상에 공감했으며 IS의 창설을 지지했다"고 밝혔다.
그는 "아들에게 2년 안에 이스라엘은 더이상 존재하지 않게 될 것이기 때문에 흥분하지 말고 인내심을 갖고 기다리라고 했다"며 "지정학이 바뀌어 러시아와 중국, 미국은 더이상 유대인의 존재를 원하지 않을 것이며 유대인을 우크라이나로 돌려보낼 것이라고 했다"고 말했다.
<관련 영문 기사>
Father of San Bernardino shooter says son ‘agreed with IS ideology’: report
The father of Syed Farook, who with his wife shot dead 14 people in San Bernardino, California, says his son approved the ideas of the Islamic State group and was fixated with Israel, the Italian daily La Stampa reported Sunday.
“He said he agreed with (IS chief Abu Bakr) al-Baghdadi’s ideas for creating the Islamic State, and he was obsessed by Israel,” La Stampa quoted the father of the shooter, also named Syed Farook, as saying.
“I always used to say to him, be calm, patience, in two years’ time Israel will no longer exist,” he said, in remarks reported in Italian.
“Geopolitics are changing: Russia, China, America too, nobody wants Jews over there. They will put them all in Ukraine. Why bother fighting them? We did that before, and we lost,” the 67-year-old said.
“But he didn’t want to know. He was obsessed” by the idea of fighting Israel, Farook was quoted as saying.
The younger Farook, 28, and his Pakistani-born wife Tashfeen Malik, 29, mowed down people at a social services centre in San Bernardino on Wednesday, killing 14 and wounding 21. They were then shot dead by police.
The IS group -- also called ISIL or Daesh -- hailed the couple as “soldiers” of its self-proclaimed caliphate in Syria and Iraq.
Wednesday’s massacre, if proven to be terror-related, would be the deadliest such assault on American soil since the September 11, 2001 attacks.
The older Farook, who arrived in the United States from Pakistan in 1972, said that, as a teenager, his son “didn’t go to parties with his friends, saying that a good Muslim can only see his wife dance”.
He said he “once” saw his son “with a pistol” and got angry with him about it.
Asked by La Stampa whether the son had been in contact with “terrorists outside the country”, the father said he didn’t know.
US investigators say they are examining a Facebook posting in which Malik is believed to have pledged allegiance to IS chief al-Baghdadi, made around the time of the attack. (AFP)