People hold candles during a vigil for the victims of the Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando, Florida. (AFP)
Orlando – The gunman who launched the worst terror attack on US soil since 9/11 at a gay nightclub in Orlando was radicalized by Islamist propaganda, officials said, amid reports he was a club regular.
Lone gunman Omar Mateen killed 49 and wounded another 53 before he was killed when police stormed the Pulse, one of Orlando’s most prominent gay venues, early Sunday.
The attack is reminiscent of the November 13 suicide attack on the Bataclan concert hall in Paris, where 90 people were massacred when jihadist gunmen opened fire on concertgoers.
A total of 130 people died across the French capital that night in a series of shootings and suicide bomb attacks.
The FBI said Mateen had been radicalized by Islamist propaganda, but found no evidence — contrary to the Paris attacks — that the shooting had been coordinated from abroad.
The Islamic State group claimed that Mateen was acting as “one of the soldiers of the caliphate in America.”
US investigators believe that Mateen was a “lone wolf” inspired by Islamist propaganda to carry out what President Barack Obama dubbed “an act of terror and an act of hate.”
FBI chief James Comey said his agents found no evidence that the attack had been directed from outside the United States, “and we see no indication that he was part of any kind of network.”
Agents are instead looking into the possible role of anti-gay bigotry.
The FBI was “highly confident” Mateen had been “radicalized” while consuming online propaganda, Comey said, adding that he claimed allegiance to Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in a series of calls during the attack.
In a further twist to the story, four people said Mateen, 29, had been a regular at the gay club, the Orlando Sentinel newspaper reported late Monday.
“Sometimes he would go over in the corner and sit and drink by himself, and other times he would get so drunk he was loud and belligerent,” Ty Smith told the Sentinel.
Smith said he had seen Mateen inside at least a dozen times.
“We didn’t really talk to him a lot, but I remember him saying things about his dad at times,” Smith said. “He told us he had a wife and child.”
Another Pulse regular, Kevin West, told the Los Angeles Times that Mateen messaged him on and off for a year using a gay chat app.
Other club goers told local media and MSNBC News that Mateen had been using multiple gay apps, including Grindr, with mutual acquaintances to “hook up.”
Mateen’s wife, Noor Zahi Salman, was not cooperating in the probe, a law enforcement official told the Sentinel.
However, agents have talked extensively with Mateen’ s ex-wife, Sitora Yusufiy, who said he had beat her.