WASHINGTON — The FBI director, James B. Comey, said Wednesday that the couple who waged a shooting rampage in San Bernardino, California, last week had been talking of an attack as far back as two years ago, before the United States gave the woman approval to enter the country.
The disclosure raised the possibility that U.S. immigration and law enforcement authorities missed something in the woman's background when they granted her the approval. It also suggested that the attackers had been inspired by groups that were far older than the Islamic State, which rose to prominence in 2014.
The couple were "talking to each other about jihad and martyrdom before they became engaged and married and were living in the U.S.," Comey said.
Comey said the "investigation to date shows that they were radicalized before they started courting or dating each other online."
The couple, Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik, met online before she moved to the United States in 2014.
Malik entered the United States on a K-1 visa, a 90-day visa given to fiancés planning to marry Americans.
Comey's statements show that the couple were motivated by extremist views long before the rise of the Islamic State, which grabbed large swaths of territory in Syria and Iraq in 2014.
Facebook has provided the FBI with a post made by Malik during the attacks, in which she pledged allegiance to the Islamic State. That post had led investigators to believe that the group was at the least an inspiration for the attack.
Comey said the FBI believes that the couple were inspired by foreign extremist groups.
"We are working very hard to see if anyone else was involved in assisting, equipping or helping them," he said. "And did they have other plans?"
Comey's comments came seven days after the attacks, which killed 14 and injured 21.
The FBI has uncovered evidence that the couple were radicalized long before they got married in 2014. The bureau has video evidence that they practiced at firing ranges in the days before the attack, and agents found more than a dozen pipe bombs in their home.
But the bureau has not found evidence that the couple were ordered to attack by the Islamic State or any other group. And they are not believed to have had any accomplices, although investigators are suspicious about what family members and friends may have known about the couple's plans.
Comey's appearance before the Senate Judiciary Committee had been scheduled before the attacks, as part of the committee's oversight of the FBI.
The office of Speaker Paul D. Ryan said that at his request, House members would receive a classified briefing about the attacks on Thursday afternoon from Comey; the secretary of Homeland Security, Jeh C. Johnson; and the head of the National Conterterrorism Center, Nicholas J. Rasmussen.
The issue of computer encryption was also raised by Comey and several of the senators at the hearing. Comey has said that terrorists, criminals and spies have drastically expanded their use of encryption in recent years, making it difficult for the authorities to track their communications.
Comey did not say whether the attackers in San Bernardino or in Paris last month had used encrypted applications to communicate with extremists abroad.
But Comey said that encryption had been used by one of the gunmen who tried to kill people at an anti-Islam cartoon contest in Garland, Texas, in May.
Comey said that the gunman in that episode had exchanged 109 messages with "an overseas terrorist."