San Bernardino mourns rampage victims, seeks unity

SAN BERNARDINO — At a church, a mosque, a makeshift street-corner memorial and other sites, they gathered Sunday to mourn the 14 victims of the San Bernardino massacre and lament that the community has now been added to the tragic list of U.S. cities scarred by terrible violence.

Residents struggled to come to terms with the violence and hoped the community would unite in mourning and not be divided by the disclosure that the killers were a religious Muslim couple.

“It’s unfortunate that we’re on this list now, a list like Newtown, Aurora and others where such tragic events occurred,” Rep. Pete Aguilar, D-Redlands (San Bernardino County), told a crowd at a mosque.

On Sunday, scores of mourners visited a growing memorial on a corner near the social service center where the shooting took place.

More than 100 people gathered for an interfaith memorial service at a mosque where Farook had occasionally prayed.

Silver-framed photos of the victims were placed on a table at the Islamic Community Center of Redlands, with a candle lit for each.

Federal investigators continued trying to establish what pushed the couple to carry out what appears to be the deadliest attack on American soil by Islamic extremists since 9/11.

While radical Islamic groups at times have mobilized women as suicide bombers, and extremist women may exhort their men to attacks, it is extremely rare in conservative Muslim societies for female jihadists to take part in actual combat, as Malik did.

Former college classmates of Malik’s and others who knew her in Pakistan said that in recent years, she began dressing more conservatively — including wearing a black head-to-toe garment or a scarf that covered nearly her entire face — and became more fervent in her faith.