The shooter who opened fire and killed 49 people in an Orlando, Florida nightclub is 29-year-old Afghan-American Omar Mateen. His papers were found on him after he was shot by police, and the FBI confirmed his identity.
Allegiance to IS
During his attack, he pledged allegiance to the jihadist organization Islamic State (IS) and refers to the Tsarnaev brothers, perpetrators of the Boston attacks in 2013, reported the spokesman for the Massachusetts State Police. The FBI, meanwhile, confirmed press reports that Omar Mateen had called the 911 emergency number – the police number – to claim his allegiance to ISIS, before being shot dead by special forces in the Pulse, Orlando’s nightclub. The jihadist group claimed responsibility for the shooting on Monday in a bulletin on its official radio: “God allowed brother Omar Mateen, one of the soldiers of the caliphate in America, to lead a ghazwa [terme islamique pour désigner une attaque] during which he managed to enter a sodomite nightclub in the city of Orlando (…) and to kill and injure more than 100 of them”announced the bulletin of Al-Bayan.
The couple of Pakistani origin, who had killed 14 people in San Bernardino (in California), in December, had also pledged allegiance to the EI, without contacts with the organization having been proven. In a statement claiming responsibility for the attack, IS called Omar Mateen a “Soldier of the Caliphate”.
Watched by the FBI
Federal police say Omar Mateen had “violent history”. The man had been questioned twice by the FBI during two investigations, in 2013 and 2014, for supposed links with the Islamist movement, without giving any follow-up, for lack of evidence.
Despite everything, holder of a gun, Omar Mateen was able to obtain two weapons very recently (a handgun and a rifle), according to the ATF, the federal agency in charge of the fight against arms trafficking. fire. He worked for a security company, G4S, since September 2007which expressed its solidarity with the victims on Twitter and affirmed to cooperate fully with the authorities in the framework of the investigation.
Omar Mateen had therefore entered the crosshairs of the FBI in 2013, after statements reported by his work colleagues had raised suspicion of possible terrorist links. The FBI then launched a more in-depth investigation, interviewing witnesses, monitoring him, checking his background and questioning him twice.
Omar Mateen came to the attention of the federal police again in 2014 because of possible links with Moner Mohammad Abu Salha, the first suicide bomber of American nationality in Syria, who also grew up in Florida before joining the Al-Nusra Front, close to al-Qaeda. After further questioning, “we determined that the contact was minimal and did not constitute a substantial relationship or a threat at the time”the FBI said on Sunday.
“He beat me”
The terrorist’s father, Seddique Mateen, told NBC News a recent episode, during which his son was shocked to see two men kissing in Miami a few months ago. Before the information relating to the link between his son and the IS was disclosed, he had claimed that this could have motivated his gesture, which, according to him, had not nothing to do with religion.
the Washington Post specifies that the shooter’s father hosted a program in Dari (Persian spoken in Afghanistan) on a channel called Payam-e-Afghan. On one of the videos posted on YouTube, adds the American newspaper, he thanks the Afghan Taliban and criticizes the Pakistani government.
Omar Mateen’s ex-wife assured the Washington Post that he was not “not a stable person” and that he often beat her for no reason during the few months that their marriage lasted, from 2009. She clarified that he was not very religious then, and that he worked as a guard in a center for young delinquents, but that she had not had contact with him since their separation.