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"It appears he was organized and well-prepared," Mina said. Orlando Police Chief John Mina said it appeared the gunman was armed with "a handgun and an AR-15-type assault rifle" and had additional rounds on him. The Islamic State has repeatedly executed gay people and then released videos showing these gruesome executions. The Islamic State-linked Amaq News Agency said in a message Sunday that the Orlando shooting "was carried out by an Islamic State fighter." The same news agency had released a message showing the Islamic State claiming some credit for the San Bernardino attack two days after that occurred, while Amaq posted a statement from the group asserting responsibility for the Brussels attacks in March within hours. Officials later said the posting was made on behalf of both attackers. Just after a husband and wife killed 14 people last December in an attack there, one of the shooters went on Facebook and pledged her allegiance to the emir of the Islamic State, a militant group also known as ISIS or ISIL. Mateen's pledge on the 911 call echoes what happened after the attack in San Bernardino, Calif., last December. "We determined that contact was minimal and did not constitute a substantive relationship or a threat at that time," Hopper said. Like Mateen, Abusalha lived in Fort Pierce, Fla. This time, they looked into potential ties connecting Mateen to Moner Mohammad Abusalha, the first American to carry out a suicide attack in Syria.
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Mateen was investigated again in 2014 by the FBI.
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In 2013, Hopper said agents investigated Mateen after he made "inflammatory comments to coworkers alleging possible ties to terrorists." Mateen was interviewed twice and, when investigators were unable to verify the details of his comments, the FBI closed the probe, Hopper said. Ron Hopper of the FBI said that Mateen had twice been investigated by the bureau and that in both cases, he was interviewed before the probes were concluded. Much like Tamerlan Tsarnaev, the older of the two brothers who carried out the Boston attack, Mateen had been the focus of an FBI investigation before launching an attack. Mateen's ex-wife said in an interview Sunday that he beat her repeatedly during their brief marriage, and said that Mateen, who was Muslim, was not very religious and gave no indications that he was devoted to radical Islam.ĭetails about Mateen's background began to emerge slowly on Sunday. The gunman's father recalled that his son recently got angry when he saw two men kissing in Miami and said that might be related to the assault. Mateen, whose family is from Afghanistan, also cited the 2013 bombing of the Boston Marathon during that call. law enforcement officials who asked not to be identified to discuss the ongoing investigation. The gunman, identified as 29-year-old Omar Mateen, made a 911 call before the attack identifying himself and declared allegiance to the leader of the Islamic State, according to U.S. "And as Americans, we are united in grief, in outrage, and in resolve to defend our people."
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"We know enough to say that this was an act of terror and an act of hate," Obama said during remarks at the White House.