Hunt for a THIRD terrorist linked to San Bernardino attackers: Syed Farook planned attack in 2012 with someone else - and his wife could have been a terror 'operative'

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San Bernardino gunman Syed Rizwan Farook may have been planning an earlier attack with someone else, officials said on Tuesday.

Farook and an unidentified person conspired in 2012 and a specific target was considered, officials said, adding that they could not elaborate on how serious the plot was.

But they did not go through with the earlier attack after several terror-related arrests in the area had them ‘spooked’, an official told CNN.

The news of Farook’s previous plot was revealed as officials announced that they are investigating the possibility that his wife and fellow attacker Tashfeen Malik was ‘an operative’, according to Fox News.

Officials say Syed Farook, seen here with his wife, Tashfeen Malik, going through customs as O'Hare Airport in July 2014 upon their arrival from Saudi Arabia, planned a separate attack with an unidentified person in 2012

Both Farook and Malik, who married in 2014, are believed to have been radicalized ‘for some time’, FBI officials said on Monday.

It is thought that the couple had been planning the attack in which they killed 14 people in San Bernardino on Wednesday for at least a year by practicing their shooting skills and making financial plans for after their deaths, according to NBC.

Malik was radicalized before she moved to the United States and an investigation is underway into her family overseas on whether they, too, were radicalized, officials said.

An official told Fox News that the ‘number one’ way terrorist organizations recruit is through family, while internet is the second most popular way.

Another investigation going on is into a $28,500 loan from an online lender that Farook took out two weeks before he and Malik went on a shooting rampage inspired by ISIS.

US government officials have said Farook, 28, and Malik, 29, who shot dead 14 of his co-workers at a holiday party in San Bernardino, were radicalized Muslims who committed an act of terror - but there is no evidence that the money trail led to a foreign group.

Investigations into such attacks often focus on how they were financed, and it is thought Farook may have used some of the money to buy the assault rifles the couple used.

At least three transfers of $5,000 appeared to go to Farook’s mother.

Law enforcement officials have revealed Malik's Facebook post pledging loyalty to ISIS and its leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi (pictured) was made on behalf of herself and Farook

The couple were armed with a .223-caliber DPMS Model A15 rifle, a Smith and Wesson M&P15 rifle as well as Llama handgun and a Smith and Wesson handgun (pictured)

Counterterrorism officials told NBC that Farook and Malik were prepping for some time to ‘take care of both grandma and the baby’. The couple left their daughter with Farook’s mother when they gunned down the holiday party.

‘What it indicates is he was financing this operation or his life or his afterlife for his child and mother, using what is now wire fraud and bank fraud, so it's just two more additional charges that the FBI will be looking at," Tim Clemente, a former FBI counterterrorism agent told CNN.

Prosper, a San Francisco-based online lender, made the $28,500 loan to Farook, a source told Reuters on Tuesday.

Fox News cited a source saying Farook's financial transactions supported the belief that the shooting was premeditated and not the result of a dispute with a co-worker at the holiday lunch for San Bernardino County workers.

It also emerged on Tuesday that the Facebook posting from an account associated with Malik in which she pledged her loyalty to ISIS and its leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, was made on behalf of herself and her husband - and not just her, as originally thought.

The message, which appeared online just minutes into the deadly attack and has since been taken down, reportedly read: 'We pledge allegiance,' senior officials told the Washington Post.

Another official said it now appears that both spouses 'were on the same path at the same time'.

Earlier in the investigation, it was suggested that Malik radicalized her American-born husband of two years.

Going for broke: Investigators said that Farook (left) and his wife Tashfeen Malik (right) drained their bank accounts and maxing out credit cards before the deadly shooting rampage 

During a press conference held on Monday, David Bowdich, assistant director in charge of the FBI’s Los Angeles field office, said that both Farook and Malik 'were radicalized and have been for quite some time'.

One of the Reuters government sources said Farook and Malik apparently pursued a scenario previously followed by US-based militants by draining their bank accounts and maxing out credit cards before launching what they believe to be a suicide mission, knowing that they would not have to pay off the debts.

Prosper evaluates borrowers for loans, which are originated by third-party bank WebBank. Prosper then sells the loans off to investors.

Fox News first reported on Monday that Farook engaged in transactions involving more than $28,000 and that the money originated with WebBank.com around November 18.

Farook converted $10,000 of the $28,000 to cash on or about November 20, and withdrew the money from a Union Bank in San Bernardino.

In the days leading up to the massacre, at least three transfers of $5,000 appeared to go to Farook’s mother.

A source confirmed to Reuters that the $28,000 figure cited by Fox was roughly what the Federal Bureau of Investigation was looking into.

FBI Los Angeles Assistant Director in Charge David Bowdich (right) and San Bernardino Police Department Chief Jarrod Burguan (left) prepare to speak at a news conference about last week's shooting in San Bernardino 

Enrique Marquez, 29 (above), allegedly purchased assault-style weapons for the San Bernardino shooters

Investigators are also reportedly trying to determine whether the $10,000 cash withdrawal was used to reimburse Enrique Marquez Jr, a security guard friend of Farook’s who is the man who bought the two semi-automatic rifles used in the attack.

The shooters themselves are thought to have bought handguns that were also used.

Marquez checked himself into a mental hospital after the killings, and FBI agents raided his home on Sunday. He is now reportedly answering investigators’ questions.

assistant special agent in charge with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, John D’Angelo, said on Monday: ‘Right now our major concern at the FBI, the ATF, and the JTTF (Joint Terrorism Task Force) is determining how those firearms, the rifles in particular, got from Marquez to Farook and to Malik.'

The weapons were all purchased legally in California between 2007 and 2012.

Farook, the Illinois-born son of Pakistani immigrants, and Malik, who was born in Pakistan and spent most of her life in Saudi Arabia, died in a shootout with police several hours after their attack on Wednesday morning at the Inland Regional Center in San Bernardino.

The assault is being investigated as an 'act of terrorism,' the FBI has said.

If the mass shooting proves to have been the work of people inspired by Islamic militants, it would mark the most lethal such attack in the United States since those by al Qaeda on Sept. 11, 2001.

Monica Gonzales relights candles on Tuesday at a memorial for the shooting rampage in San Bernardino