Terrorism in OrlandoGunman kills 49, injures 53 in an Orlando, Florida club (updated)

Omar Mir Seddique Mateen, a 29-year American citizen whose parents are from Afghanistan, entered a night club in Orlando, Florida, at about 2:00 a.m., armed with an AR-15 assault-rifle and a hand gun, and opened fire. He killed 49 people and injured 53 – the deadliest mass shooting in the history of the United States – before being killed by police officers who stormed the club.

The shooting occurred at Pulse, a dance club catering to gay and lesbian patrons.

Law enforcement authorities said that Mateen called 911 from inside to declare his allegiance to ISIS.

The police said that after emptying a few magazines shooting into the crowds, the gunman took hostages for about three hours, trying to negotiate with then police.

The three-hour standoff ended around 5 a.m., when law enforcement officers led by a SWAT team stroemd the club, using an armored vehicle and explosives designed to disorient and distract. More than a dozen police officers and sheriff’s deputies engaged in a shootout with Mateen, killing him.

There were thirty people still inside the club when the police stormed it.

Until the shooting early Sunday, the most lethal mass shooting in the United States was the 2007 Virginia Tech rampage, in which 32 people were killed and 30 injured.

Orlando Police Chief John Mina said in a press conference that that the death toll could have been even greater, saying that a SWAT team “rescued at least 30 possible victims and brought them to safety.” Police said it was not yet clear if all of the people killed or injured were shot during the initial round of gunfire at 2 a.m., or during the shootout with police three hours later.

“It’s absolutely terrible,” Mina said during a news briefing. “Fifty victims in one location, one shooting, is absolutely one of the worst tragedies we’ve seen.”

Ronald Hopper, an assistant agent in charge of the FBI’s Tampa Division, suggested that the killer was an Islamist radical, and law enforcement officials said they were investigating the massacre as a terrorist attack. The FBI set up a hotline for tips.

“We do have suggestions that that individual may have leanings towards that, that particular ideology,” Agent Hopper said at a news conference. “But right now we can’t say definitively, so we’re still running everything around.”

The New York Times reports that court records show that Mr. Mateen was born in New York, and had been married and divorced.

In a Sunday interview, Mateen’s ex-wife said that he was abusive, beating her repeatedly during their marriage. She said that during their brief marriage, Mateen, who was Muslim, was not very religious and gave no indications that he was devoted to radical Islam.

Mateen was from Fort Pierce, which is also where Moner Mohammad Abusalha, the first American to carry out a suicide attack in Syria, had lived in Florida.

Hours after the attack, ISIS claimed responsibility in a statement released over an encrypted phone app used by the group. It stated that the attack “was carried out by an Islamic State fighter,” according to a transcript provided by the SITE Intelligence Group, which tracks jihadist propaganda.

Officials cautioned that even if Mateen was inspired by the group, there was no indication that it had trained or instructed him, or had any direct connection with him. Some other terrorist attackers have been “self-radicalized,” including the husband and wife who killed fourteen people in December in San Bernardino, California, who also proclaimed allegiance to the Islamic State, but apparently had no contact with the group.