Obama calls California shooting act of terrorism

U.S. President Barack Obama said Sunday the recent shooting rampage in southern California was an act of terrorism.

"This was an act of terrorism, designed to kill innocent people," said Obama in his third Oval Office address during his seven-year presidency.

"It is clear that the two of them had gone down the dark path of radicalization, embracing a perverted interpretation of Islam that calls for war against America and the West," Obama said.

Two gunmen shot down 14 people on Wednesday at a southern California social services center and injured several others. According to local police, "some degree of planning" was involved in the shooting spree.

The suspects, 28-year-old U.S. citizen Syed Farook and his 27-year-old wife Tashfeen Malik, had 1,600 rifle and 9-millimeter rounds of ammunition when they were killed, and 2,000 9-millimeter rounds and 2,500 .223 rifle rounds at home, as well as 12 pipe bombs and tools to make bombs, according to the police.

Those did not include the hundreds of rounds they fired in the shooting and gunfire with the police.

The address came less than a week after two shooters shot down 14 and injured 21 at a Southern California social services center, and less than a month after the deadly attacks in Paris, for which the IS had already claimed responsibility.