Orlando shooter Omar Mateen repeatedly declared allegiance to the Islamic State or referred to himself as a soldier of Islam, when negotiating with the Orlando Police Department June 12.
Immediately after identifying himself as “Mateen” and confessing to shooting up Pulse nightclub, he repeatedly pledged allegiance to ISIS leader Abu Bakr Al-Bagdadi and ISIS as a whole. When an Orlando PD hostage negotiator again asked him to state his name Mateen replied, “You’re speaking to the person who pledged allegiance to the Islamic State.”
The negotiator tried a different tactic with Mateen telling him “My name is Andy. What’s yours?” Mateen simply replied “My name is Islamic soldier,” elaborated “Call me Mujahideen, call me the Soldier of God.”
Mateen refused to seriously negotiate with Orlando PD, instead consistently demanding that the U.S. cease airstrikes in Iraq and Syria. He framed his deadly attack as retribution for U.S. airstrikes telling the negotiator, “you have to tell America to stop bombing Syria and Iraq. They are killing a lot of innocent people. What am I to do here when my people are getting killed over there. You get what I’m saying?”
Mateen also took the time to praise deceased Boston Bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev as his “homeboy.”
In the aftermath of the attack several media organizations sought to downplay the motivation of radical islam for Mateen. The New York Times wrote that “the precise motivation for the rampage remains unclear,” prior to launching into a barely veiled attempt to blame Republican politics on transgendered bathrooms. The Atlantic blamed “toxic masculinity” for the attack, while Vox said Mateen’s rampage was a product of, “America’s hypermasculine, police-worshiping society.” Countless members of the media continuously called for gun control (even for weapons that don’t exist).
Mateen himself laid out the motivation for his attack, telling the negotiator that a U.S. airstrike on ISIS member Abu Wahid is what “triggered” his attack.
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