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Omar Mateen Posted to Facebook Amid Orlando Attack, Lawmaker Says Omar Mateen Posted to Facebook Amid Orlando Attack, Lawmaker Says
(about 2 hours later)
Before and during a massacre at a popular gay nightclub in Orlando, the gunman made a series of Facebook posts, according to a Senate committee chairman, including one in which he raged against the “filthy ways of the west” and another that warned of attacks by the Islamic State “in the next few days.” The gunman who committed the massacre at a popular gay nightclub in Orlando used multiple Facebook accounts to write posts and make searches about the Islamic State. “Now taste the Islamic state vengeance,” he declared, denouncing “the filthy ways of the west.” He even searched for references to the massacre while he was carrying it out, a United States senator revealed on Thursday.
Details about the Facebook postings of the gunman, Omar Mateen, came in a letter from Senator Ron Johnson, chairman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, to the chief executive of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg. The committee asked Facebook to provide information on Mr. Mateen’s Facebook activities, including all messages, photographs and posts. In his posts, the gunman, Omar Mateen, called on the United States and Russia to stop the bombing campaign against the Islamic State, the extremist group that controls parts of Syria and Iraq, pledged allegiance to the group’s leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, and said, “may Allah accept me,” Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin wrote in a letter to Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s chairman and chief executive.
Facebook was given a deadline of June 29 to provide the information. “You kill innocent women and children by doing us airstrikes,” Mr. Mateen wrote in one post, according to the senator. “Now taste the Islamic state vengeance.”
The request came as President Obama and Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., prepared to visit Orlando and meet privately with the scores of families who lost sons, daughters, siblings and partners to offer the condolences of a nation that is still reeling. And in what Mr. Johnson described as the gunman’s final post, he wrote, “In the next few days you will see attacks from the Islamic state in the usa.”
Mr. Johnson said that at some point, Mr. Mateen also used Facebook to search for “Pulse Orlando” and “shooting.” Federal law enforcement officials and eyewitnesses have said that after killing and wounding scores of people at the Pulse nightclub early Sunday and taking hostages, Mr. Mateen, 29, declared his support for the Islamic State in phone conversations with the police. In the past, he had said he supported or belonged to other Islamist extremist groups, and he had expressed hatred of gay people.
“You kill innocent women and children by doing us airstrikes,” Mr. Mateen said in one post, according to the senator’s letter. “Now taste the Islamic state vengeance.” Law enforcement officials, and President Obama, have said that Mr. Mateen, the American-born son of Afghan immigrants, was influenced by radical propaganda that he found online. But so far, officials say, the evidence suggests that he was “self-radicalized” and acted alone, with no direct connection to any larger organization.
And in what Mr. Johnson said was the final post, Mr. Mateen warned of more shootings to come: “In the next few days you will see attacks from the Islamic state in the usa.” On Thursday, the Central Intelligence Agency director, John O. Brennan, gave a grim assessment of the prospects for such attacks to continue. Though the Islamic State has been pushed back on battlefields in the Middle East, he said in testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee, “our efforts have not reduced the group’s terrorism capabilities and global reach.”
During the attack Sunday at the Pulse nightclub, Mr. Mateen pledged his allegiance to the Islamic State in calls to 911 and during negotiations with the police. The postings seem to corroborate accounts that he was motivated in part by the Islamic State. About a third of the ISIS fighters in Syria and Iraq are believed to have been killed or to have deserted. But Mr. Brennan said the Islamic State was s intensifying its plans to stage attacks in the West, and was committed to continue using propaganda to inspire “lone wolf” attacks like Mr. Mateen’s.
Mr. Johnson, Republican of Wisconsin, said in the letter that Mr. Mateen had also used Facebook in May to search for information on the terrorists behind the 2015 attack in San Bernardino, Calif. In June, the letter said, he searched “Baghdadi speech.” Senator Johnson, a Republican who leads the Committee on Homeland Security, wrote in his letter to Mr. Zuckerberg that his staff had found that “five Facebook accounts were apparently associated with Omar Mateen.” He asked that Facebook provide the committee with all information on any accounts tied to the gunman, including activity logs, messages, photos and posts. The letter, dated Wednesday and made public on Thursday, asked the company to comply by June 29.
On Thursday, investigators continued to search for answers to the shooting. In recent days, they have interviewed Mr. Mateen’s wife, along with relatives, friends and anyone who may have had contact with him. Mr. Mateen frequently used Facebook to search for information on offices of the F.B.I. and other law enforcement agencies, and last month, he searched for information on the couple who pledged allegiance to the Islamic State and then killed 14 people in December in San Bernardino, Calif., Mr. Johnson wrote. On June 4, he conducted a Facebook search for “Baghdadi Speech.”
Federal officials, as well as Mr. Obama, have said Mr. Mateen appeared to have been inspired by extremist information on the internet. They say there was no clear evidence that he was part of a wider plot directed by a terrorist group. And on Sunday morning, after opening fire at the Pulse nightclub and while a three-hour standoff with police was underway, “Mateen apparently searched for ‘Pulse Orlando’ and ‘Shooting,’ the letter states.
“As far as we can tell right now, this is certainly an example of the kind of homegrown extremism that all of us have been so concerned about for a very long time,” Mr. Obama said earlier this week. The disclosure by Mr. Johnson came as Mr. Obama and Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., went to Orlando to meet privately with the scores of families who lost sons, daughters, siblings and partners to offer the condolences of a nation that is still reeling.
Representative Adam B. Schiff, Democrat of California, said Mr. Mateen appeared to have been motivated by a mixture of violent radicalization and hatred for gays and lesbians. On Thursday, investigators were still searching for answers to the shooting. In recent days, they have interviewed Mr. Mateen’s wife, along with relatives, friends and anyone who may have had contact with him.
His wife, Noor Zahi Salman, has told the F.B.I. that she tried to talk her husband out of carrying out an attack, but that she once drove him to Pulse and went with him to buy ammunition, law enforcement officials say. On Wednesday, Justice Department officials declined to say whether Ms. Salman might face criminal charges.
The assault by Mr. Mateen, who used an assault rifle and a handgun, left 49 people dead and 53 wounded — the worst mass shooting in American history. Most of the victims were lesbian or gay, Hispanic, or both.
Representative Adam B. Schiff, Democrat of California, said Mr. Mateen appeared to have been motivated by a mixture of violent radicalization and hatred for gays and lesbians. His former wife has described him as mentally ill.
During the standoff, Mr. Mateen told the police that he had explosives as well as firearms. And he referred to other gunmen working with him. Investigators have found no evidence for either claim. Mr. Mateen died in a shootout with the police after they breached a wall of the nightclub.