UPDATED, 11:ooam EST:
Saudi Arabian officials are confirming to NBC News that Mateen visited Saudi Arabia twice in the last several years to make Umrah, a lesser pilgrimage to Mecca performed by devout Muslims.
A spokesman for Saudi Arabia's Interior tels @NBCNews Mateen performed Umrah (the lesser pilgrimage) twice, in 2011, 2012 #Orlando
— Richard Engel (@RichardEngel) June 13, 2016
UPDATED, 10:00am EST:
Much is still unknown about what led Omar Mateen to kill 49 people and wound 50 more in Pure nightclub Sunday, but according to a report posted overnight from the East Orlando Post, Mateen had been casing several gay nightclubs in the Orlando area over the course of about a month.
Mateen “friended” at least one nightclub owner on Facebook, a fact reported to the FBI yesterday. Law enforcement sources told the Post that Mateen was likely developing relationships with club patrons and staff to get a sense of nightclub routines. The FBI is now reviewing security footage to see whether Mateen visited Pulse before his attack on Sunday.
UPDATED, 11:00pm EST:
We are now learning more about Omar Mateen’s ties to radical Islamic clerics. According to Fox News, Omar Mateen was a follower of Marcus Dwayne Robertson, a former US Marine turned Imam who was well-known to the FBI for encouraging his followers to pursue terrorist activities.
Robertson and several of his associates were questioned by the FBI Sunday morning, according to law enforcement (Robertson’s attorney denies that his client was in any way involved with the investigation). At least one source also told Fox that Mateen had been attending Robertson’s online Fundamental Islamic Knowledge Seminary, a tool the source said Robertson used to recruit potential terrorists.
In addition, Mateen was at the Islamic Center of Fort Pierce just two days ago, in the company of Imam Shafiq Rahman. The Islamic Center is notable as the mosque attended by Monar abu Salha, an American-born suicide bomber who was discovered in Syria. It was Mateen’s contact with abu Salha that drew the FBI’s attention to Mateen in 2013. The FBI determined that Mateen’s contact with abu Salfa was minimal, however.
UPDATED, 10:30pm EST:
Omar Mateen’s ex-wife, Sitora Yusufiy, gave an interview to ABC News Sunday evening, in which she discussed her life with the shooter who took the lives of 50 club-goers in Orlando Sunday morning.
Ex-wife of Orlando shooter says former husband 'honestly…is a sick person.' https://t.co/XApGygIb1T https://t.co/Bp1rQ9VSry
— ABC News (@ABC) June 13, 2016
“After being abused and after trying to do that and see the good in him, I can honestly say this is a sick person. This was a sick person that was really confused and went crazy,” she told reporters. She painted a picture of a man with violent mood swings: “He would be perfectly normal and happy, joking, laughing one minute — the next minute his temper… his body would just [go] totally the opposite.”
She also said that Mateen wanted to be a police officer and “hung out with a lot of cops.” She told ABC News that she discovered that Mateen was violent just a few weeks into their marriage. She left him soon after, with the help of her parents, divorced Mateen officially in 2011, and had not spoken to Mateen since.
She offered her sympathy for the grieving families.
UPDATED, 5:00pm EST:
Federal authorities released more information about Omar Mateen, the individual responsible for killing 50 and wounding 53 more at an Orlando nightclub.
Mateen, who is not known to have any affiliation to a mosque, according to the FBI, called 911 before entering the club to “pledge allegiance to ISIS.” He was, previously the subject of two individual FBI investigations: once in 2010, after a coworker reported him for having made statements indicating support for radical Islam, and once in 2013, after law enforcement identified Mateen as an associate of an American who had received terrorist training abroad. In both cases, the FBI determined Mateen was not a threat and closed their investigation.
Mateen was also revealed to be an employee of G4S, a Federal contractor, hired to provide security for Federal buildings. Mateen was a licensed security guard and was able to obtain the guns used in Sunday morning’s terrorist attack legally. Mateen’s coworkers, speaking to media, did say they were concerned with Mateen’s behavior and frequent, racially charged outbursts.
Former coworker of Orlando mass-murderer said he's NOT surprised by killing https://t.co/sdLIEqwJm9 pic.twitter.com/KJPIUhCJRS
— Marc Caputo (@MarcACaputo) June 12, 2016
Mateen’s father is also attracting additional scrutiny. Seddique Mateen, an Afghanistan native, is the host of an Arabic-language television show called the “Durand Jirga Show” and the head of the “Durand Jirga” organization, registered to his home address in Port St. Lucie, Florida.
In one episode of the Durand Jirga Show posted online just hours before the Orlando shooting, the elder Mateen appears to declare himself the President of Afghanistan. He also praises the Taliban and speaks out against the government of Pakistan, calling on ethnic Pashtuns as well as other military forces in Afghanistan to rebel against the Afghani government.
According to pictures posted on his Facebook page, Siddequi Mateen has met with several members of Congress and regularly sends messages to President Obama.
ISIS has claimed responsibility for the Orlando attacks but there is no evidence yet that there is a formal connection.
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Federal authorities have identified the alleged shooter responsible for at least 50 fatalities at an Orlando gay club as Omar S. Mateen, a 29-year-old Florida man shot by police at 5 a.m. Sunday after a lengthy stand-off.
An FBI agent told reporters Sunday morning: “We do have suggestions that that individual may have leanings toward [Islamic extremism]. But right now, we can’t say definitively, so we’re still running everything around.”
Florida Sen. Bill Nelson said today that there “appears to be a link to Islamic radicalism . . . some kind of connection to ISIS,” ABC reported.
The alleged shooter’s father, Mir Seddique Mateen, told NBC News that the shooting “has nothing to do with religion.” He said his son was “very angry” recently after witnessing two men kissing recently in downtown Miami.
The local paper TCPalm reports that authorities are now searching Mateen’s home for explosives, preparing to search it. Mateen likely lived with his sister and her husband, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Mateen, was born on Nov. 16, 1986, in New York and lived in Port Saint Lucie, Florida. He attended Martin County High School and Indian River State College, earning degrees in science in 2006 and 2007, the TCPalm reports.
Mateen had two firearms licenses, one for concealed carry and the other as a security officer.
In 2009, according to St. Lucie County Court records, Mateen married a woman named Sitora Alisherzoda Yusufiy, born in 1989 in Uzbekistan. They divorced in 2011, though the court proceedings were not immediately available.
Yusufiy told the Washington Post today that “he was not a stable person” and that he beat her. “He would just come home and start beating me up because the laundry wasn’t finished or something like that,” she said. During the marriage, she said, Mateen showed no interest in radical Islam.
She said the marriage ended after her parents learned of the abuse, intervened and “literally saved my life.” The Florida Department of Law Enforcement records says Mateen has no state criminal record, according to the TCPalm.
ABC News reports that Mateen was not under investigation but “on the radar” of American law enforcement.
CBS News says that Mateen’s parents were born in Afghanistan.
A Port St. Lucie man named Seddique M. Mateen filed papers with the Florida Department of State Division of Corporations in March, establishing a not-for-profit corporation called the Provisional Government of Afghanistan Corporation.
A phone number listed for Seddique M. Mateen was busy on Heat Street‘s repeated calls on Sunday.
