Category Archives: ISIS ISIL Islamic State Caliphate

10 Americans and a Thumbdrive

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One such Islamic State fighter was included in the database/thumbdrive:

NBC: A San Diego man died fighting for the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) over the weekend, NBC News reported Tuesday.

In an exclusive report, NBC News said a passport and photos of a body were used to identify Douglas McAuthur McCain, 33.

McCain was one of three men killed in a battle over the weekend, according to the Free Syrian Army.

McCain, an Illinois native, lived in Minnesota for a while before moving to Southern California.  San Diego City College officials confirmed McCain attended the school but would not provide further details.

He was known around a mosque near City Heights and another in El Cajon, according to an acquaintance.

Source: http://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/local/American-San-Diego-Man-Dies-Fighting-for-ISIS-in-Syria-California-Jihad-272740991.html#ixzz42WFyqZa6
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He was formerly with the Free Syrian Army, a movement to take back Syria from tyrannical rule by Bashir al Assad. Disenchanted with leadership and support, he joined Islamic State. He soon figured that Islamic State leadership was worse and the power was at the hands of former Saddam Hussein Baathist members.

He uses the moniker Abu Hamed.

He was charged with recruiting for Islamic State, a job that gave him access to soldier applications that had 23 personal questions that included contact information, country of origin and how they jihad applicants were able to travel to Syria.

Disgusted, he downloaded files to a thumbdrive and handed the data to a member of the media in Turkey. 23,000 names, 10 were Americans.

Intelligence officials call this a major cache of data, such that it can be cultivated to learn the entire global network and collaborate with other foreign intelligence agencies. The database will likely shed light on unknown threats in America as well as add additional information on cases that the FBI is currently working on in each of the 50 states.

ISIS registration forms list names, contact info for 22,000 jihadists

FNC: Tens of thousands of documents, containing 22,000 names, addresses, telephone numbers and family contacts of Islamic State jihadis, have been obtained by Sky News.

Nationals from at least 51 countries, including the U.K., had to give up their most personal information as they joined the terror organisation. Only when the 23 question form was filled in were they inducted into IS.

A lot of the names and their new Islamic State names on the registration forms are well known.

Abdel Bary, a 26-year-old from London joined in 2013 after visiting Libya, Egypt and Turkey. He is designated as a fighter but is better known in the U.K. as a rap artist. His whereabouts are unknown.

Another jihadi named in the documents, now dead after being targeted in a drone strike, is Junaid Hussain, the head of Islamic State’s media wing who along with his wife, former punk Sally Jones, plotted attacks in the U.K. Her whereabouts are unknown.

Reyaad Khan from Cardiff, who also entered in 2013, is also among those found among the registration forms. He was well known for appearing in a highly produced Islamic State propaganda video. He was later killed.

But the key breakthrough from the documents is the revealing of the identities of a number of previously unknown jihadis in the U.K., across northern Europe, much of the Middle East and North Africa, as well as in the United States and Canada.

Their whereabouts are crucial to breaking the organisation and preventing further terror attacks.

Many of the men passed through a series of jihadi “hotspots” – such as Yemen, Sudan, Tunisia, Libya, Pakistan and Afghanistan – on multiple occasions, but were apparently unchecked, unmonitored and able to both enter Syria to fight and then to return home.

One of the files marked “Martyrs” detailed a brigade manned entirely by fighters who wanted to carry out suicide attacks and were trained to do so.

Some of the telephone numbers on the list are still active and it is believed that although many will be family members, a significant number are used by the jihadis themselves.

The files were passed to Sky News on a memory stick stolen from the head of Islamic State’s internal security police, an organisation described by insiders as the group’s SS. He had been entrusted to protect the organisation’s core secrets and he rarely parted with the drive.

The man who stole it was a former Free Syrian Army convert to Islamic State who calls himself Abu Hamed.

 

ISIS’s Global Strategy | FindTheData

Data curated by FindTheData

Disillusioned with the Islamic State leadership, he says it has now been taken over by former soldiers from the Iraqi Baath party of Saddam Hussein.

He claims the Islamic rules he believed in have totally collapsed inside the organisation, prompting him to quit.

I met him in a secret location in Turkey, and he said IS was giving up on its headquarters in Raqqa and moving into the central deserts of Syria and ultimately Iraq, the group’s birthplace.

He also claimed that in reality Islamic State, The Kurdish YPG and the Syrian government of Bashar al-Assad, are working together against the moderate Syrian opposition.

Asked if the IS files could bring the network down he nodded and said simply: “God willing”.

From the attacks in Tunisia and the Bataclan massacre in Paris it is clear that IS is refocusing its base of operations abroad and is intent on carrying out high profile attacks in Western countries, something that security chiefs across Europe are warning about right now.

Sky News has informed the authorities about the haul.

Hat Tip Delta Force, Capture of Islamic State CW Expert

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Update: He was captured last month: Sleiman Daoud al-Afari, Iraqi dictator’s chemical and biological arms specialist, captured by Delta Forces. He worked directly for Saddam Hussein.

(CNN) The U.S. military has conducted airstrikes against targets it believes are crucial to ISIS’ chemical weapons program based on information provided by a senior ISIS operative involved in chemical weapons, several U.S. officials told CNN.

The information he provided to interrogators has given the U.S. enough information to begin striking ISIS areas in Iraq associated with the group’s chemical weapons program. One U.S. official said the goal is to locate, target and carry out strikes that will result in the destruction of ISIS’s entire chemical weapons enterprise — mainly mustard agent ISIS produces itself.

It was not immediately clear if the U.S. was able to strike all of the necessary targets. Intelligence and surveillance of the targets had indicated in some Iraqi locations that civilians were present at prospective sites, officials told CNN.

While the goal is to end ISIS’ capability to manufacture and use mustard agent, the actual targets being struck include people, facilities and vehicles. The agent itself is made in relatively small quantities and has a fairly short shelf life, the U.S. government believes. Since the weekend, the U.S. has struck what it is calling “improvised weapons facilities” and other targets near Mosul, Iraq, but officials would not say if these were chemical weapons sites.

The operative was captured in one of the first missions of the so-called Expeditionary Targeting Forces. It is a group of some 200 Special Operations troops assembled in northern Iraq to gather intelligence and pursue ISIS operatives on the ground by either capturing or killing them in Iraq, and eventually in Syria. Carter recently acknowledged the ETF is “having an effect and operating.

U.S. Captures, Interrogates Top Islamic State Chemical Weapons Expert

Capture is among recent U.S. advances in ongoing effort to counter terror network

WSJ: WASHINGTON—The U.S. military captured one of Islamic State’s top chemical weapons experts in a recent raid—and has spent several weeks interrogating him about the terror network’s capabilities and planning, U.S. officials said Wednesday.

The detainee, who wasn’t named by U.S. officials, is expected to be released to the Iraqi government at the end of this week, the officials said.

Iraqi military spokesmen declined to comment on his capture. A spokesman for Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

The capture was among recent U.S. advances in an ongoing, though uneven, effort to counter Islamic State, which has maintained a foothold in Iraq and Syria while also recently expanding into parts of Libya as well.

In one airstrike last week in Syria, Pentagon officials believe they killed Abu Umar al-Shishani, a top Islamic State commander known fairly widely by the nickname “Omar the Chechen.”

The chemical weapons expert was captured in recent raid the Pentagon acknowledged last week. However, officials at the time said they had captured a high-ranking operative, without providing further detail. His actual role in the organization was disclosed on Wednesday.

The move came as U.S. and Western officials have grown increasingly concerned about the terror network’s plans to use chemical weapons against enemies and in the U.S.

Director of National Intelligence James Clapper told Congress last month that Islamic State already has used chemical weapons “numerous times” in Iraq and Syria, adding that “aspirationally, they would like to do more.”

It was at least the second time that the U.S. military was able to capture and interrogate a person with valuable intelligence about Islamic State’s operations. In May, U.S. special-operations forces conducted a raid in Syria that killed Abu Sayyaf, considered to be one of the group’s financial chiefs. His wife, Umm Sayyaf, was detained and interrogated by the U.S. military. The intelligence from that raid helped U.S. officials run numerous operations and crack down on the group’s access to money, officials have said.

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In part from ToI: The two Iraqi officials identified the man as Sleiman Daoud al-Afari, who worked for Saddam Hussein’s now-dissolved Military Industrialization Authority where he specialized in chemical and biological weapons. They said al-Afari, who is about 50 years old, heads the Islamic State group’s recently established branch for the research and development of chemical weapons.

He was captured in a raid near the northern Iraqi town of Tal Afar, the officials said. They would not give further details.

The officials, who both have first-hand knowledge of the individual and of the IS chemical program, spoke on condition of anonymity as they are not authorized to talk to the media. No confirmation was available from US officials.

Airstrikes are targeting laboratories and equipment, and further special forces raids targeting chemical weapons experts are planned, the intelligence officials said. They and the Western official also spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media.

IS has been making a determined effort to develop chemical weapons, Iraqi and American officials have said. The militant group, which emerged out of al-Qaeda in Iraq, is believed to have set up a special unit for chemical weapons research, made up of Iraqi scientists from the Saddam-era weapons program as well as foreign experts.

Iraqi officials expressed particular worry over the effort because IS militants gained so much room to operate and hide chemical laboratories after overrunning around a third of the country in the summer of 2014, territory which they then joined with territory they controlled in neighboring Syria. Full article here.

Evidence: Middle East Money in Arizona

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Arizona Atty. Gen. Finds Money Trail Between Middle East, Mexican Smugglers

Months after six Middle Eastern men who entered the U.S. illegally through Mexico were arrested in Arizona state authorities have uncovered an extensive money trail between the Middle East and Mexico. This includes more than a dozen wire transfers sent from the Middle East to known Mexican smugglers in at least two different regions of the Latin American nation, according to the Arizona Attorney General’s Office.

A report issued by the AG exposes the disturbing money trail between Mexico and terrorist nations in the Middle East as well as evidence of smuggling routes tying the region to America’s southern border. An excerpt of the AG’s findings was obtained by a local media outlet that published it this week. It states that the Mexican city of Tapachula, a known human smuggling hub located near the Guatemalan border in the state of Chiapas, was the top destination of Middle Eastern money transfers. Nogales, which is situated adjacent to the Arizona border, is the second destination, the investigation found. “Agents conducted a comprehensive geographic analysis of possible terrorist related transactions and/or money transfers involving human smuggling networks,” the state report says.

Officials launched the probe shortly after six men—one from Afghanistan, five from Pakistan—were arrested in Patagonia, a quaint ranch town that sits 20 miles north of Nogales, on November 17. Judicial Watch investigated the matter as part of an ongoing probe on the dire national security issues created by the famously porous southern border. Special Agent Kurt Remus in the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) Phoenix headquarters told JW that the agency’s Joint Terrorism Task Forces vetted and interviewed the six men and determined that there were “no obvious signs of terrorism” so they were returned to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody.

But a few days later, in a story reported exclusively by JW, five young Middle Eastern men were apprehended in the nearby Arizona town of Amado, which is located about 30 miles from the Mexican border. Two of the Middle Eastern men were carrying stainless steel cylinders in backpacks, law enforcement and other sources told JW, alarming Border Patrol officials enough to call the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) for backup. Only three of the men’s names were entered in the Border Patrol’s E3 reporting system, which is used by the agency to track apprehensions, detention hearings and removals of illegal immigrants. E3 also collects and transmits biographic and biometric data including fingerprints for identification and verification of individuals encountered at the border. The other two men were listed as “unknown subjects,” which is unheard of, according to a JW federal law enforcement source. “In all my years I’ve never seen that before,” a veteran federal law enforcement agent told JW.

The money trail exposed by Arizona officials in the aftermath of these two major incidents is extremely troublesome. The AG’s Financial Crimes Task Force quickly identified suspicious wire transfers sent from Middle Eastern and African nations by people with Middle Eastern names to Mexico. In 2015, one human smuggler in Mexico received 70 money transfers from 69 senders, the task force found. “All of the 69 sender names appeared to be of Middle Eastern origin,” the AG writes in its report. This seems to confirm JW’s reporting in the last few years on the dangerous alliance between Mexican smugglers and Middle Eastern extremists who want to attack the U.S.

Last summer JW broke a story about a Mexican drug cartel operation that smuggles foreigners from countries with terrorist links into a small Texas rural town near El Paso. They use remote farm roads—rather than interstates—to elude the Border Patrol and other law enforcement barriers, according to sources on both sides of the Mexico-U.S. border. The foreigners are then transported to stash areas in Acala, a rural crossroads located around 54 miles from El Paso on a state road – Highway 20. In 2015 JW also reported that the Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria (ISIS) is operating camps near the U.S. border in areas known as Anapra and Puerto Palomas west of Ciudad Juárez in the Mexican state of Chihuahua. That information came from high-level sources just months after JW exposed an ISIS plot orchestrated from Ciudad Juárez to attack the U.S. with car bombs or other vehicle borne improvised explosive devices (VBIED). As a result of JW’s reporting Ft. Bliss, the U.S. Army base in El Paso, increased security. The threat was imminent enough to place agents across a number of Homeland Security, Justice and Defense agencies on alert. As far back as 2014 JW reported that four ISIS terrorists were arrested by federal authorities and the Texas Department of Public Safety in McAllen and Pharr.

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According to a 2010 report, “Close to home: Hezbollah terrorists are plotting right on the U.S. border,” which appeared in the NY Daily News:

Mexican authorities have rolled up a Hezbollah network being built in Tijuana … closer to American homes than the terrorist hideouts in the Bekaa Valley are to Israel. Its goal, according to a Kuwaiti newspaper that reported on the investigation: to strike targets in Israel and the West. Over the years, Hezbollah—rich with Iranian oil money and narcocash—has generated revenue by cozying up with Mexican cartels to smuggle drugs and people into theU.S. In this, it has shadowed the terrorist-sponsoring regime in Tehran, which has been forging close ties with Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, who in turn supports the narcoterrorist organization FARC, which wreaks all kinds of havoc throughout the region.

Another 2010 article appearing in the Washington Times asserts that, “with fresh evidence of Hezbollah activity just south of the border [in Mexico], and numerous reports of Muslims from various countries posing as Mexicans and crossing into the United States from Mexico, our porous southern border is a national security nightmare waiting to happen.” This is in keeping with a recent study done by Georgetown University, which revealed that the number of immigrants from Lebanon and Syria living in Mexico exceeds 200,000. Syria, along with Iran, is one of Hezbollah’s strongest financial and political supporters, and Lebanon is the immigrants’ country of origin. Just like only 19 jihadists were necessary to cause the devastation of September 11, 2001, only a handful of these 200,000 are necessary to wreak havoc north of the border.

A jihadist cell in Mexico was recently found to have a weapons cache of 100 M-16 assault rifles, 100 AR-15 rifles, 2,500 hand grenades, C4 explosives and antitank munitions. The weapons, it turned out, had been smuggled by Muslims from Iraq. According to this report, “obvious concerns have arisen concerning Hezbollah’s presence in Mexico and possible ties to Mexican drug trafficking organizations (DTO’s) operating along the U.S.-Mexico border.”

*** Chicago?

TheBlaze: The city may be nearly 2,000 miles from Mexico, but the country’s drug cartels are so deeply embedded in Chicago that local and federal law enforcement are forced to operate as if they are “on the border,” according to Jack Riley, special agent in charge for the Chicago Field Division of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA).

 

Because of Chicago’s location in the heart of the United States, its large Mexican population and its abundance of street gang activity, drug cartels have designated the city as one of its main hubs of operation in America, Riley told TheBlaze in an exclusive interview. Inevitably, the increasing presence of cartels has also contributed to the Windy City’s skyrocketing violent crime rates, the DEA boss revealed.

“My opinion is, right now, a number of the Mexican cartels are probably the most organized, well-funded, vicious criminal organizations that we’ve ever seen,” said Riley.

Right now, at least three major Mexican cartels are fighting for control of billions of dollars worth of marijuana, cocaine and heroin in Chicago. That includes the ruthless Zetas and the powerful Sinaloa cartel, run by Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, arguably the most wanted man in North America, and perhaps the entire world.

However, the influence of drug cartels is seemingly overlooked repeatedly by the media when it reports on Chicago’s crime rate and rampant drug-related violence.

Europe Calls on NATO to Clean up the Mess

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So, the damage is done, destruction to Europe is throughout the region. European leaders refuse to fully live up to their respective NATO membership and fight the good cause, rather they need NATO to clean up a mess they caused……immigration, migration, crime and broken borders.

It begins in Turkey, a NATO country quite tired of hosting millions of refugees and demanding Assad be removed from power. The next step in Greece, just a few hours boat ride from Turkey where people pay smuggling boat people to take them to the shores of Greece.

Greece itself is broken financially and is happy to stick it to the European Central Bank for not fully bailing out Greece’s socialism.

Please NATO help us out. Stop the migrant insurgency.

Schengen is suspended and likely dead….

NATO Secretary General welcomes expansion of NATO deployment in the Aegean Sea

NATO took swift decisions to deploy ships to the Aegean Sea to support our Allies Greece and Turkey, as well as the EU’s border agency FRONTEX, in their efforts to tackle the migrant and refugee crisis. NATO ships are already collecting information and conducting monitoring in the Aegean Sea. Their activity will now be expanded to take place also in territorial waters.

Our commanders have defined our area of activity in close consultation and coordination with both Greece and Turkey. Our activities in territorial waters will be carried out in consultation and coordination with both Allies. The purpose of NATO’s deployment is not to stop or push back migrant boats, but to help our Allies Greece and Turkey, as well as the European Union, in their efforts to tackle human trafficking and the criminal networks that are fueling this crisis.

NATO’s Maritime Command has also agreed with FRONTEX on arrangements at the operational and tactical level. NATO and FRONTEX will be able to exchange liaison officers and share information in real time, to enable FRONTEX, as well as Greece and Turkey, to take action in real time.

This is an excellent example of how NATO and the EU can work together to address common challenges. I welcome the fact that we were able to finalise these arrangements in such a short time. In this crisis, time is of the essence, and cooperation is key.

**** You are by now asking what is FRONTEX….heh…well it is a European commission that has clearing failed in it’s charter.

Mission and Tasks

Frontex promotes, coordinates and develops European border management in line with the EU fundamental rights charter applying the concept of Integrated Border Management.

Frontex helps border authorities from different EU countries work together. Frontex’s full title is the European Agency for the Management of Operational Cooperation at the External Borders of the Member States of the European Union. The agency was set up in 2004 to reinforce and streamline cooperation between national border authorities. In pursuit of this goal, Frontex has several operational areas which are defined in the founding Frontex Regulation and a subsequent amendment. These areas of activity are:

Joint Operations— Frontex plans, coordinates, implements and evaluates joint operations conducted using Member States’ staff and equipment at the external borders (sea, land and air).

Training— Frontex is responsible for developing common training standards and specialist tools. These include the Common Core Curriculum, which provides a common entry-level training rationale for border guards across the Union, and mid- and high-level training for more senior officers.

Risk Analysis— Frontex collates and analyses intelligence on the ongoing situation at the external borders. These data are compiled from border crossing points and other operational information as well as from the Member States and open sources including mass media and academic research.

Research— Frontex serves as a platform to bring together Europe’s border-control personnel and the world of research and industry to bridge the gap between technological advancement and the needs of border control authorities.

Providing a rapid response capability— Frontex has created a pooled resource in the form of European Border Guard Teams (EBGT) and an extensive database of available equipment which brings together specialist human and technical resources from across the EU. These teams are kept in full readiness in case of a crisis situation at the external border.

Assisting Member States in joint return operations— When Member States make the decision to return foreign nationals staying illegally, who have failed to leave voluntarily, Frontex assists those Member States in coordinating their efforts to maximise efficiency and cost-effectiveness while also ensuring that respect for fundamental rights and the human dignity of returnees is maintained at every stage.

Information systems and information sharing environment— Information regarding emerging risks and the current state of affairs at the external borders form the basis of risk analysis and so-called “situational awareness” for border control authorities in the EU. Frontex develops and operates information systems enabling the exchange of such information, including the Information and Coordination Network established by Decision 2005/267/EC and European border surveillance system.

While fulfilling its mandate, Frontex liaises closely with other EU partners involved in the development of the area of Freedom, Security and Justice such as Europol, EASO, Eurojust, FRA or CEPOL, as well as with customs authorities in order to promote overall cohesion.

Frontex also works closely with the border-control authorities of non-EU/Schengen countries — mainly those countries identified as a source or transit route of irregular migration — in line with general EU external relations policy.

**** So Turkey, get your act together and take these people back. They are not Turks, few are even Syrians…..but a NATO country must accept them?

Commission Visa Progress Report: Turkey makes progress towards visa liberalisation

The Commission has today adopted the second report on progress by Turkey in fulfilling the requirements of its Visa Liberalisation Roadmap, highlighting the steps made by Turkey since the last report in October 2014. At the EU-Turkey Summit of 29 November, Turkey committed to accelerating the fulfilment of the Roadmap, including by anticipating the application of all the provisions of the EU-Turkey Readmission agreement, with the objective of completing the visa liberalisation process by October 2016, provided all the benchmarks have been met by then. Today’s report welcomes the new level of engagement and determination demonstrated by the Turkish authorities.

 

Whoa, Could This Be on San Bernardino Shooter’s Phone?

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San Bernardino County DA: Dec. 2 terrorist may have been planning cyber attack

SBSun: A legal brief filed Friday in U.S. District Court in Riverside by San Bernardino County’s top prosecutors said Syed Rizwan Farook may have planted a virus on his work-issued iPhone that could launch a cyber attack capable of infecting and crashing the county’s computer network.

iPhone Amicus Brief that explains the infecting malware.

The brief, filed by District Attorney Michael Ramos and Chief Deputy District Attorney Gary Fagan, is one of several that were filed this week supporting a federal magistrate’s Feb. 16 order compelling Apple Inc. to help the FBI access an encrypted work-issued iPhone used by Farook.

“The iPhone is a county owned telephone that may have connected to the San Bernardino County computer network,” Ramos and Fagan wrote in their friend of the court brief, one of several filed this week in support of the government. “The seized iPhone may contain evidence that can only be found on the seized phone that it was used as a weapon to introduce a lying dormant cyber pathogen that endangers San Bernardino County’s infrastructure.”

A plethora of briefs were also filed by some the world’s biggest technology companies, digital privacy advocates and civil liberty organizations including Facebook, Amazon.com, Pinterest, Microsoft, Snapchat, Yahoo, and the American Civil Liberties Union in support of Apple.

Armed with assault rifles and clad in tactical gear, Farook, 28, and his wife, Tashfeen Malik, 29, walked into the Inland Regional Center in San Bernardino shortly before 11 a.m. Dec. 2 and opened fire on a crowd of about 70 people, killing 14 people and wounding 22 others. The Redlands couple were killed in a shootout with police hours after the attack.

Most of those killed or wounded in the mass shooting, including Farook, were employees of the county’s environmental health services division, who were attending a training seminar that morning.

FBI agents found two smashed mobile phones in a dumpster behind Farook’s Redlands townhouse, and his work-issued iPhone 5C was found, intact but passcode encrypted, in a black Lexus parked in front of the residence. Investigators believe that phone contains communications between Farook and some of the victims and possible other information that could be germane to the criminal investigation.

Ramos and Fagen are the first to broach the subject of a possible cyber attack Farook may have been planning.

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Farook’s employment with the county provided him access to information that could have made the county vulnerable to a security breach and exposed employees to danger, Ramos said Friday in a telephone interview.

He said survivors of the shooting and family members of those killed in the attack are trying to move on with their lives but still have questions about the attack, such as why they were targeted and if they face future threat.

“All of this information could be on that one phone. (Farook and Malik) were using phones and hard drives, we believe, to prepare for these terrorist attacks,” Ramos said.

He said U.S. Magistrate Sheri Pym’s Feb. 16 order followed the letter of the law, and the U.S. Constitution.

“A federal magistrate determined there was probable cause to issue a search warrant to have Apple allow the FBI access to that information on the phone,” Ramos said. “Nobody’s rights are being violated. No one’s.”

Survivors of the shooting and family members of those who died still have questions about whether there was a third shooter, according to the prosecutors’ brief.

“Although the reports of three individuals were not corroborated, and may ultimately be incorrect, the fact remains that the information contained solely on the seized iPhone could provide evidence to identify, as of yet, unknown coconspirators who would be prosecuted by the district attorney for multiple murders and attempted murders in San Bernardino County,” the brief states.

Those sentiments were raised in another friend of the court brief filed Thursday on behalf of some of the victims of the shooting and surviving family members, one of whom wrote a personal letter to Apple CEO Tim Cook saying many victims claim to have seen “three assailants, not two, walking around in heavy boots as they carried out their murders.”

FBI spokeswoman Laura Eimiller said that forensic evidence indicates two weapons were fired at IRC, and that victim/witness accounts often vary during traumatic events.

While the majority of victims said they saw two shooters, some said there was only one and others said there were three, Eimiller said in an e-mail.

“Our investigation is continuing and we will continue to evaluate any new information that is developed or that comes our way,” Eimiller said.