An undated photo from a social media account of Omar Mateen, who Orlando Police have identified as the suspect in the mass shooting at a gay nighclub in Orlando, Florida. (Source: reuters photo)
The Islamic State group on Monday claimed responsibility for the Orlando shooting that killed 50 people, saying in a radio bulletin that it was carried out by “one of the soldiers of the caliphate”.
“God allowed Omar Mateen, one of the soldiers of the caliphate in America, to carry out an attack entering a crusader gathering in a night club… in Orlando in Florida, killing and wounding more than 100 of them,” a bulletin from Al-Bayan radio said.
The jihadist group declared its “caliphate” in Syria and Iraq in 2014.
READ | Full coverage of Florida shooting
Twenty nine-year-old Omar Mateen, an American citizen whose parents are from Afghanistan, stormed a gay nightclub, wielding an assault rifle and a pistol, and carried out the worst mass shooting in United States history, leaving 50 people dead and 53 wounded.
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The gunman’s father recalled that his son recently got angry when he saw two men kissing in Miami and said that might be related to the assault. His ex-wife, Sitora Yusufiy, told reporters that her former husband was bipolar and “mentally unstable.”
READ | Worst in US history: How the Orlando shooting unfolded
Mateen was short-tempered and had a history with steroids, she said in remarks televised from Boulder, Colorado. She described him as religious but not radical.
He wanted to be a police officer and applied to a police academy, but she had no details. The couple was together for only four months, and the two had no contact for the last seven or eight years, she said.
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