U.S. officials have discovered that one of the San Bernardino shooters told a small group of Pakistani friends in 2012 and 2014 that she supported Islamic jihad in at least two private Facebook messages.

Speaking on the condition of anonymity, two top federal law enforcement officials said Monday that Tashfeen Malik talked about joining the Islamic extremist terrorist group before she and her husband, Syed Rizwan Farook, opened fire at the Inland Regional Center during a Christmas party on the morning of Dec. 2. In total, 14 people were killed while 21 others were wounded during the massacre. Both suspects were then killed during a shootout with police after the attack.

Now, officials say that U.S. law enforcement and intelligence agencies missed red flags that Malik was a potential threat before she migrated to the U.S. in July 2014.

One of the officials characterized the messages as "her private communications ... to a small group of her friends," reports The Los Angeles Times. The official added it was written in the Pakistani language of Urdu.

The second official said Malik "expressed her desire" in one of the posts to become a jihadist in her own right.

FBI agents have also found that the couple separately became radicalized before they met on the Internet in 2013.

Malik was born in Pakistan but moved to Saudi Arabia when she was 4 years old. She later moved back to Pakistan around 2007, where she attended Bahuddin Zakri University in Multan.

An attorney representing Farook's family said that Malik met her husband on a dating website. She gained legal permanent resident status in America after obtaining a K-1 visa for fiancées in July 2014. CBS reports that she passed the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's "counterterrorism screening as part of her vetting" process before receiving a visa.

She then married 28-year-old Farook, who was born in Chicago to Pakistani parents, on Aug. 16, 2014. The couple had a 6-month-old daughter who was left in the care of a relative on the day of their attack.