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 Authorities also have evidence that Syed Rizwan Farook, 28, and
his spouse Tashfeen Malik, 29, had engaged in firearms target
practice near their Southern California home within days of last
week's deadly shooting rampage, according to the Federal Bureau of
Investigation.
The latest disclosures in the FBI-led investigation came as San
Bernardino County employees began returning to work under tighter
security, five days after Farook, an environmental health inspector
for the county, and Malik opened fire with assault-style rifles on a
holiday gathering of his colleagues.
The couple died in a shootout with police several hours after their
attack on Wednesday morning in a conference room at the Inland
Regional Center social services agency in San Bernardino, about 60
miles (100 km) east of Los Angeles.
The FBI said last week that authorities are investigating the mass
shooting as an "act of terrorism," noting that Malik, a Pakistani
native who lived most of her life in Saudi Arabia, was believed to
have pledged allegiance on Facebook to the leader of the militant
group Islamic State.
 If the mass shooting - the deadliest burst of U.S. gun violence in
three years - proves to have been the work of people inspired by
Islamic militants, it would mark the most lethal such attack in the
United Sates since Sept. 11, 2001.
In addition to five firearms recovered by investigators, authorities
also have seized thousands of rounds of ammunition amassed by the
couple, along with explosives and other materials for making as many
as 19 pipe bombs, the FBI said.
Mounting signs that extremist ideology played some role in
Wednesday's attack continued to reverberate in the campaign for the
November 2016 U.S. presidential election.
A day after Democratic President Barack Obama urged Americans in a
televised White House address to avoid scape-goating of Islam as a
religion, Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump called
for a ban on Muslims entering the United States.
SUSPECTS BELIEVED RADICALIZED 'FOR SOME TIME'
Questions have been raised about the extent to which Farook, who was
born in Illinois to Pakistani immigrant parents and grew up in
Southern California, might have been introduced to extremism by
Malik, whom he married in Saudi Arabia in the summer of 2014 before
returning together to the United States.
"The answer is we still do not know," said David Bowdich, assistant
director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Los Angeles
office. But, he added, "We have learned and believe that both
subjects were radicalized and had been for quite some time."
Malik's transformation began before she came to the United States,
according to the FBI. But Bowdich said it remained to be seen
whether the husband and wife were indoctrinated by other individuals
or whether they turned to extremist ideology on their own.
Two U.S. government sources familiar with the case said on Monday
that investigators had uncovered electronic communications
indicating the couple had at least tried to contact militants
abroad, but those communications were believed to have been part of
a self-radicalization process.
 One source told Reuters the probe was focusing closely on contacts
the shooters may have had with radical Islamists in the United
States, rather than oversees.
Addressing that aspect of the probe in a news conference on Monday,
Bowdich said. "I want to be crystal clear here. We do not see any
evidence so far of ... an outside-the-continental-U.S. plot. We may
find it some day, we may not. We don't know."
While the couple may have been inspired by Islamic State, U.S.
government sources last week said there was no evidence their attack
was directed by the militant group or that the organization even
knew who they were.
FBI Director James Comey said on Friday that no information had been
uncovered suggesting the killers were part of an extremist cell or
network.
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Asked about media reports that Farook may have come to the attention
of law enforcement before Wednesday's killing, Bowdich said: "What I
can tell you is we did not have an open investigation into Mr.
Farook at the time of this incident." He also said the FBI was
working with foreign counterparts to expand the scope of its
investigation.
To date, he said authorities have conducted well over 400 interviews
in Southern California and collected more than 320 pieces of
evidence.
SUSPECT'S MOTHER STILL BEING QUESTIONED
The FBI, he said, was continuing to seek a motive for the attack.
Agents believe the couple had been planning more violence because of
their cache of ammunition and explosives found in a bomb-making
workshop in the suspects' home.
Farook's mother was still being questioned. She shared the couple's
rented home in the town of Redlands and was caring for the suspects'
6-month-old daughter on the morning of the shooting. Officials have
said the infant has since been placed in protective custody.
John D'Angelo, a special agent for the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol,
Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, confirmed that the two rifles used
in the attack were purchased by an individual named Enrique Marquez,
described by several of his neighbors as having been a good friend
of Farook.
Federal agents raided the Marquez home in Riverside, California, on
Saturday, but it was not clear whether Marquez himself had been
questioned. Federal law enforcement sources told Reuters that
Marquez, considered a key witness in the probe, had checked himself
into a Los Angeles-area psychiatric facility in the immediate
aftermath of the shooting.
The two handguns and a .22-caliber rifle recovered by investigators
were bought by Farook. D'Angelo said all five guns were legally
purchased originally from licensed gun dealers in California between
2007 and 2012.
The mass shooting and its possible connections to Islamic militants
quickly found its way into presidential politics, with several
candidates for the 2016 Republican nomination accusing Obama of
hesitancy in linking Wednesday's bloodshed in California to
international terrorism.
In a televised address from the Oval Office on Sunday night, Obama
condemned the attack as "an act of terrorism designed to kill
innocent people" while cautioning against fear-mongering against the
Muslim community and overreaction to the militant threat at home.
On Monday, Trump called for a blanket halt to immigration of Muslim
individuals to the United States. "Until we are able to determine
and understand this problem and the dangerous threat it poses, our
country cannot be the victims of horrendous attacks by people that
believe only in Jihad," he said.
(Writing by Steve Gorman; Additional reporting by Barbara Goldberg
in New York and Mark Hosenball and Julia Edwards in Washington;
Editing by Bill Trott, Mary Milliken, Lisa Shumaker and Ken Wills)
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