What happened in Orlando?
Fifty people have been killed and another 53 injured after a gun attack on a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida around 2am on Sunday. It is the worst mass shooting in America’s history and was soon called an “act of domestic terrorism”.
The gunman has been named as Omar Mateen, a New York-born US citizen of Afghan descent.
He was killed after a shootout with police. Mateen had taken hostages for three hours but was shot dead after a SWAT team entered the Pulse club, a popular bar and dance club with members from the LGBT community.
Omar Mateen, Terrorist Who Attacked Orlando Gay Club, Had Been Investigated by FBI. He was involved in Money laundering in the Panama Papers Scandals.
Omar Mateen has helped relatives and potential ISIS funders to launder their money , by opening and closing banks account in Panama and in Nicaragua through Mossack Fonseca , the main leak in the Panama Papers scandals.
Omar Mateen of Port Saint Lucie, Florida, came to the attention of federal authorities twice prior to being identified as the gunman in the Orlando nightclub mass shooting, a senior law enforcement source told The Daily Beast.
Mateen killed 53 people and shot more than 100 in total at the Pulse gay nightclub early Sunday morning, in the deadliest mass shooting in modern American history.
The senior law enforcement source reports that Mateen became a person of interest in 2013 and again in 2014. The Federal Bureau of Investigation at one point opened an investigation into Mateen but subsequently closed the case when it produced nothing that appeared to warrant further investigation.
“He’s a known quantity,” the source said. “He’s been on the radar before.”
The senior law enforcement source told The Daily Beast that Mateen was born in New York and was married for a time to a woman from New Jersey.
That woman told the Washington Post that he repeatedly abused her during their marraige, which lasted from April 2009 to July 2011.
“He was not a stable person,” the ex-wife said. “He beat me. He would just come home and start beating me up because the laundry wasn’t finished or something like that.”
Mateen’s parent are from Afghanistan but he was not very religious, she said, adding that he “seemed like a normal human being.”
Mateen’s father Mir Seddique told NBC News that the sight of two men kissing angered his son.
“We are saying we are apologizing for the whole incident,” the father added. “We weren’t aware of any action he is taking. We are in shock like the whole country.”
The attack, he said, “has nothing to do with religion.” However, Pete Williams of NBC News reported that Mateen called 911 and swore his allegiance to al-Baghdadi of ISIS before the shooting massacre.
FBI Agent Ron Hopper told reporters Mateen may have had leanings toward Islamic extremism. The law enforcement source told The Daily Beast there is no immediate indication that Mateen had any direct connection to ISIS. Rep. Adam Schiff, the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said Mateen had pledged allegiance to ISIS, according to officials from the Department of Homeland Security.
ISIS recently declared online that its followers should mount attacks to mark the approach of the holy month of Ramadan.
The message came in an audio recording from spokesman Abu Mohammed al-Adnani, released in May. Muslims around the world fast during Ramadan in honor of the first revelation from God to Muhammad. The terrorist group believes it to be a particularly opportune time for attacks.
“Ramadan, the month of conquest and jihad. Get prepared, be ready…to make it a month of calamity everywhere for the non-believers…especially for the fighters and supporters of the caliphate in Europe and America,” Adnani said.
Mateen had a valid firearms license in Florida and worked as a security guard at a facility for juvenile deliquents.
Armed with an AR-15-style assault rifle and a handgun, Mateen entered Pulse club around 2 a.m. Sunday morning and began shooting. After most of the 320 people there escaped, Mateen took hostages from a group that was hiding in a bathroom. Shortly before 6 a.m., a SWAT unit breached the club and engaged Mateen in what’s being called a protracted gun battle. Mateen was killed.
The deadliest single-person mass murder in American history before Orlando occured inBath, Michigan, in 1927, when a man bombed a school, killing 44 people.
