Orlando shooting: Mateen ranted against West during Pulse slaying

The gunman used Facebook before and during his ­attack to blame the US for the deaths of “innocent women and children”.

Women grieve at a memorial site for the victims of the Pulse Nightclub shooting in Orlando, Florida.

Florida gunman Omar Mateen apparently made a series of Facebook posts and searches before and during his ­attack on a gay nightclub, raging against the “filthy ways of the west” and blaming the US for the deaths of “innocent women and children”, a Senate committee letter released yesterday says.

The killer, whose rampage left 49 people dead, also searched for “Pulse Orlando” and “Shooting” online on the morning of Sunday’s carnage and said on Facebook: “America and Russia stop bombing the Islamic State,” ­according to the letter.

The Senate homeland security committee sent the letter to Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg, asking the company to produce information on Mateen’s online activity and to provide a briefing to the panel.

The letter illuminating ­Mateen’s state of mind in the final hours of his life was released as the long, sad procession of memorials and funerals for the victims began in Orlando and as the FBI ­appealed for the public’s help in reconstructing the killer’s movements. The FBI is also trying to establish how much Mateen’s wife may have known about the attack at Pulse dance club.

“We need your help in developing the most complete picture of what he did and why he did it,” FBI agent Ron Hopper said.

In its letter, the committee said staffers found five Facebook ­accounts were associated with the 29-year-old US-born Muslim.

“The real Muslims will never accept the filthy ways of the west,” Mateen wrote, according to the letter from Republican committee chairman Ron Johnson.

Senator Johnson did not say how he learned of the posts other than to cite “information obtained by my staff”. As he did in his call to a 911 operator during the massacre, Mateen pledged his allegiance on Facebook to the leader of the Islamic State in his final post.“I pledge my alliance to abu bakr al Baghdadi ... may Allah accept me. You kill innocent women and children by doing us airstrikes ... now taste the Islamic state vengeance … in the next few days you will see attacks from the Islamic state in the usa (sic).”

A person familiar with the situation said the posts came ­moments before the attack began.

Despite Mateen’s professed loyalty to the extremist group, the Obama administration has said it has seen no evidence that the rampage was directed by ISIS.

The three-hour rampage began at 2am (4pm, AEST) and ended with Mateen being killed by a police SWAT team. The FBI said it was still gathering evidence at the Pulse and analysing mobile phone location data to piece together Mateen’s activities leading up to the massacre, while also interviewing people who had any dealings with him. Hours before the rampage, Mateen visited Disney Springs, a restaurant, retail and entertainment complex at Walt Disney World.

Meanwhile, drag queens and motorcyclists turned out to pay their respects at an evening visitation at a funeral parlour for Javier Jorge-Reyes, a 40-year-old salesman and makeup artist.

SWAT team members had a stress-management debriefing yesterday, as hundreds of others involved in the response to the shooting have done, Orlando Police Chief John Mina said.

“These are some of the bravest, toughest men I know,” he said. “No one can prepare you for what those officers encountered that night. They stood toe-to-toe and went face-to-face with a mass murderer, and I’m extremely proud of that.”

A key topic for investigators is how much Mateen’s Palestinian-American wife may have known about the plot. An official said authorities believed US-born Noor Salman, 30, knew ahead of time about the attack. Investigators have spoken extensively with her and are working to establish whether she recently accompanied Mateen to the club.

US Attorney Lee Bentley repeatedly refused to say whether charges might be brought against the wife or anyone else. He said authorities were talking to hundreds of people and investigating everyone associated with Mateen, including family, friends and business associates. Ms Salman has been in seclusion for days.

In other developments, Florida documents showed Mateen passed a psychological evaluation in 2007 as part of his application to be a security guard.

Orlando TV producer Matt Gentili of CFN 13 said Mateen called during his standoff to say he was doing it for Islamic State. The station’s managing editor traced the call back to a number associated with Mateen.

A clip from a documentary about the 2010 BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico shows Mateen — working security for the clean-up — talking cynically about people making money off disasters. The excerpt from 2012’s The Big Fix shows ­Mateen telling a woman everyone is “hoping for more oil to come out and more people to complain so they’ll have the jobs”.

AP