Dad: San Bernardino shooter agreed with ISIL, 'obsessed with Israel'

Oren Dorell | USA TODAY

Show Caption Hide Caption Obama: San Bernardino suspects possibly 'radicalized' In his weekly address, President Obama offered his condolences to the families of the victims of the San Bernardino shooting. He also urged Americans to come together to try and prevent further tragedies like this from happening.

The father of San Bernardino suspect Syed Rizwan Farook told an Italian newspaper that his son expressed support for the Islamic State group and was obsessed with Israel.

The father, who is also named Syed Farook, told La Stampa that his son took on an overly conservative outlook on Islam and at least once expressed support for ideas promoted by Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of the Islamic State militant group, also known as ISIL or ISIS.

"He said he shared the ideology of al-Baghdadi to create an Islamic state, and he was obsessed with Israel," the father told a reporter in an interview outside the home of his other son, Syed Raheel Farook, in Corona, Calif.

The father said he counseled his son to be patient because, he said, in time political changes in the Middle East will accomplish his desires.

"I kept telling him always: stay calm, be patient, in two years Israel will no longer exist," the elder Farook told the newspaper. "Geopolitics is changing: Russia, China, America too, nobody wants the Jews there."

But Syed Rizwan Farook was not dissuaded, the father said.

The FBI said it is investigating contacts that Syed Rizwan Farook, 28, had with other suspected radicals before he and his wife Tashfeen Malik, 29, embarked on Wednesday's shooting rampage that killed 14 people and injured 21 others at a holiday gathering for San Bernardino County health department employees, where Farook worked.

Shortly before the attack began, Malik posted to Facebook a pledge of allegiance to the Islamic State, according to the FBI.

The father said his family was destroyed when his son sided against him with his equally religious mother.

"Rizwan was the mama's boy, and she is very religious like him," he said. "Once we had a dispute about the historical figure of Jesus, my son yelled that I was an unbeliever and decided that marriage with my wife had to end."