Hopper also confirmed media reports that Mateen made 911 calls to police early on Sunday, and referred to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL also known as ISIS) group. Rahman doesn’t think the attack was political or due to anti-American sentiment, though.
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Mateen shot his way into the Pulse nightclub at 2 am (0600) Sunday, and died in a shootout with police who stormed building about three hours later, authorities said.
MORE: These are the victims of the Pulse Nightclub shooting in OrlandoTarin said Seddique Mir Mateen had a television show on which they discussed issues facing Afghanistan.
A crowdfunding campaign to support the Orlando Pulse shooting victims and their families pulled in more than $1 million in 11 hours on Sunday. “I don’t think it has anything to do with ISIS”.
Mateen’s father told NBC News that the attack “has nothing to do with religion“.
The Washington Post reported that some of Mateen’s shows, which were broadcast in Dari, were supportive of the Taliban. During one episode, a sign in the background read: “Long live the U.S.A!”
Abu-Salha said he was comforted and inspired by the lectures of Anwar al-Awlaki, the radical American-born Islamic cleric killed by a US drone strike in Yemen.
Dozens of YouTube videos show him hosting the “Durand Jirga Show” on a TV channel broadcast from California. The suspect is from Fort Pierce, Florida, officials say.
The organizers of the Pride in London event said a minute’s reflection will take place at the event on June 25.
That followed an Federal Bureau of Investigation statement on Sunday saying it had interviewed Mateen three times in 2013 and 2014.
“I was devastated, shocked, starting shaking and crying because – more than anything – -because I was so, so deeply hurt and heartbroken for the people who lost their loved ones”, Yusufiy said.
“This massacre is therefore a further reminder of how easy it is for someone to get their hands on a weapon that lets them shoot people in a school, or a house of worship, or a movie theatre, or a nightclub”.
Mateen’s former wife told The Washington Post that she met him about eight years ago online and made a decision to move to Florida in the southeastern U.S.
“He was mentally unstable”.
It was the deadliest mass shooting in USA history.
Ms Yusufiy was saved from the abusive marriage in 2009 – only a year after she met Mateen- when her family and Mateen had a falling out.
He said: “At first, when I heard the shots I thought it was part of the music, but then we realised it was really happening”.
Asked if the gunman had a connection to radical Islamic terrorism, Mr Hopper said authorities had “suggestions that individual has leanings towards that”.
The suspect has been tentatively identified as Omar Mateen, two law enforcement officials tell NPR’s Carrie Johnson. He called those interviews inconclusive.
Joseph Abreu, spokesman for the St. Lucie County clerk of courts, said Mateen last used his security badge in May 2013, the same year the FBI investigated “inflammatory” comments he made to coworkers, claiming ties to terrorists.
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Police were being contacted by people trapped inside the nightclub, he says, and “our biggest concern was future loss of life”.
