While President Barack Obama has said that the motives of Omar Mateen–the terrorist who murdered 49 people at an Orlando nightclub–are unknown, Mateen himself was unambiguous about his motivations: loyalty to the Islamic State.
It has now been revealed that, in addition to calling 911 during the attack to pledge his loyalty to the terrorist group, Mateen called a local TV station to declare, “I did it for ISIS. I did it for the Islamic State.”
Mateen called News 13 in Orlando at 2:45 am–about 45 minutes into the shooting–and told producer Matthew Gentili, “I’m the shooter. It’s me. I am the shooter.”
Gentili said that Mateen began speaking Arabic. When asked to speak English, the shooter replied: “I did it for ISIS. I did it for the Islamic State.”
After the line went silent, Gentili asked if there was anything else Mateen wanted to say. He replied, “No,” and hung up the phone.
Federal officials have not yet confirmed that the call came from Mateen, but News 13 “was able to research the phone number from which the call came, and it matched to Omar Mateen.”