911 Call Reveals Orlando Shooter's Terrorist Ties

Ryan Mauro of the Clarion Project discusses why the attacker chose a gay nightclub as his target.

Investigators in Florida are working to understand what exactly motivated the gunman who killed 50 people and wounded 53 more at a gay nightclub in Orlando before he was killed in a shootout with police. Authorities have identified him as 29-year-old Omar Mateen of Port St. Lucie.

Mateen swore allegiance to Abu Bakr al-Baghdad, the leader of the Islamic State, in a 911 call from the club.

National security analyst Ryan Mauro works for the Clarion Project, a non-profit that builds awareness of Islamic extremism.

He told CBN News that the call “was a way of letting the world know that this was an ISIS attack. But it was also to get the media there and also to get first responders there.”

"That’s a common terrorist tactic where you actually want people involved in firstaid to show up so you can actually go after them as well,” he explained.

Mauro said that other jihadists have targeted gays but the scale of this attack is different. 

“Having this many people killed in one attack is new,” he said. “But the idea of going after gays is not new and it’s quite popular in the Muslim world unfortunately.”

Mateen’s father says his son became angry a couple of months ago when he saw two gay men kissing and that the incident may be related to the shooting. 

But he disputed that his son’s religion inspired the attack. 

The FBI says that Mateen was a U.S. citizen and not under surveillance although authorities were aware that he had ties to an American suicide bomber and that he had made inflammatory comments to coworkers in 2013. 

The security company G4S says Mateen had been an employee since 2007.

Mateen legally bought at least two firearms in the last several weeks according to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Mauro said the United States must develop better ways to prevent “known extremists” from purchasing guns.