US investigators are digging into what motivated a Florida man to slaughter 49 people at a gay nightclub, including evidence he had become absorbed in militant Islamist ideas and reports he might have struggled with his own sexual identity.
Omar Mateen, who was shot dead by police after a three-hour standoff early on Sunday (local time), left behind a tangled trail of possible motives. He also called police during his rampage to voice allegiance to various militant Islamist groups.
Federal investigators have said Mateen was likely self-radicalised and there was no evidence that he received any instruction or aid from outside groups such as Islamic State.The 29-year-old was a US citizen, born in New York of Afghan immigrant parents.
"He appears to have been an angry, disturbed, unstable young man who became radicalised," President Barack Obama told reporters after a meeting of the National Security Council.
One official familiar with the investigation, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said investigators are only beginning to delve into the contents of Mateen's cellphone and other electronic devices. The source said they believe Mateen browsed militant Islamic material on the internet for two years or more before the Orlando shootings.
Mateen's wife attempted to talk him out of the attack, NBC News reported on Tuesday, citing officials familiar with her comments to the FBI.
The attack on the Pulse nightclub in the central Florida city was the deadliest mass shooting in modern US history, and the worst attack on the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community. About 53 other people have been injured.
Soon after the attack, Mateen's father indicated that his son had harbored strong anti-gay feelings. He recounted an incident when his son became angry when he saw two men kissing in downtown Miami while out with his wife and young son.
The Orlando killings came six months after the massacre of 14 people in San Bernardino, California, by a married couple professing Islamist militant ideologies.
'I'M DEAD'
Angel Colon, who was in Pulse with friends at the time of Mateen's attack, described hearing gunfire and falling to the floor, shot in the left leg.
"I couldn't walk at all," he told a reporters at Orlando Regional Medical Center, where he is one of 27 survivors being treated. "All I could do was lay down. People were running over me."
Colon said he had a hopeful moment when Mateen went into a bathroom - where he later took hostages - but the gunman then emerged, systematically making his way through the club shooting people who were already down, apparently to ensure they were dead.
"I look over and he shoots the girl next to me and I was just there laying down and thinking, 'I'm next, I'm dead," Colon said.
Mateen shot him twice more, one bullet apparently aimed for his head striking his hand, and another hitting his hip, Colon recalled.
"I was just prepared to stay there laying down so he wouldn't know I was alive," Colon said. When police drove Mateen back into a restroom, an officer dragged Colon to safety, he said.
MARTYRDOM MOTIVE?
Two US officials, both of whom have been briefed regularly on the investigation and requested anonymity to discuss it, said that if it emerged that Mateen led a secret double life or had gay impulses that conflicted with his religious beliefs, it might have been a factor in explaining his motive.
"It's far too early to be definitive, and some leads inevitably don't pan out, but we have to consider at least the possibility that he might have sought martyrdom partly to gain absolution for what he believed were his grave sins," one of the officials said.
The official noted that the concept of martyrdom is not confined to Islam, as Christians also venerate martyrs who died for their beliefs.
A performer at Orlando's Parliament House, another gay club, said he had seen Mateen at Pulse occasionally before his rampage, often accompanied by a male friend. He had not seen Mateen in about two years, he said.
"He was fine most of the time but other times, if he was drinking, he'd go all spastic and we'd have to take him out to his car and make him leave," said the performer, Ty Smith, who uses the stage name Aries.
A spokeswoman for Pulse's owner, Barbara Poma, denied that Mateen had ever been a patron. "Untrue and totally ridiculous," spokeswoman Sara Brady said in an e-mail when asked about the claim.
Mateen's father, Seddique Mateen, told reporters on Tuesday that his son had never mentioned being homosexual. "I don't believe he was a whatever you call it," the elder Mateen said.
Obama also noted Mateen used an assault rifle similar to those used in massacres in San Bernardino, California; Aurora, Colorado; and Newtown, Connecticut, and called for a renewed federal ban on that kind of weapon.
"Enough talking about being tough on terrorism," Obama said. "Actually be tough on terrorism and stop making it easy as possible for terrorists to buy assault weapons."
The National Rifle Association rejected that idea in an article published by USA Today on Tuesday prior to Obama's comments.
"Radical Islamic terrorists are not deterred by gun control laws," Chris Cox, the executive director of the NRA's Institute for Legislative Action, wrote. "The San Bernardino terrorist attack wasn't stopped by California's so-called 'assault weapons' ban."
SUPPORT FOR MILITANT GROUPS
During his rampage, Mateen made a series of calls to emergency 911 dispatchers in which he pledged loyalty to the leader of Islamic State, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, whose organization controls large swaths of Iraq and Syria.
He also claimed solidarity in those calls with the ethnic Chechen brothers who carried out the deadly 2013 Boston Marathon bombing and with a Palestinian-American who became a suicide bomber in Syria for the al Qaeda offshoot known as the Nusra Front, authorities said.
Mateen's name was listed on an unclassified federal database for nearly a year between 2013 and 2014 after he allegedly told co-workers of possible sympathies he had with militants overseas, three federal officials familiar with the investigation told Reuters.
He was removed from this so-called selectee list after the FBI completed a nine- or 10-month investigation and concluded he had no connections with known terrorist groups, two of the officials said. One added that investigators concluded that Mateen, who at times claimed ties to groups that are fighting one another, may have been a "fantasist."
Islamic State and the Nusra Front are at odds in Syria's civil war, while al Qaeda and Hezbollah are also bitter enemies.
Islamic State reiterated on Monday a claim of responsibility, although it offered no signs to indicate coordination with the gunman.
Comey said the FBI closed its earlier investigation of Mateen after 10 months, convinced that his assertions of extremist ties were intended to "freak out" co-workers who he said were harassing him for being a Muslim.
Removal of Mateen from the FBI's watch list at that time permitted him to buy firearms without the FBI being notified, Comey said.
