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News / Nation & World

Transcripts of 911 calls reveal terrorist motives of shooter at Orlando nightclub

By Caitlin Doornbos, Elyssa Cherney and David Harris, Orlando Sentinel
Published: September 23, 2016, 9:10pm

ORLANDO, Fla. — “You have to tell America to stop bombing Syria and Iraq. They are killing a lot of innocent people,” gunman Omar Mateen told a crisis negotiator from inside the Pulse nightclub during a June standoff, transcripts of 911 calls released Friday show.

The 17 pages of conversations between Mateen and Orlando officials over a series of calls between 2:35 a.m. and 3:25 a.m. on June 12 reveal for the first time the extent of Mateen’s terrorist motives behind the shooting that killed 49 people and injured more than 50 others.

Investigators have said Mateen was not formally linked to the Islamic State but was a “lone wolf” attacker — a person without direct ties to a formal terrorist organization, but is radicalized and attacks alone.

“This is Mateen. I want to let you know I’m in Orlando and I did the shooting,” the shooter told dispatchers in his brief first call to 911. “I pledge my allegiance to (Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi) of the Islamic State.”

The transcripts were made public after the FBI approved releasing calls or records not exempt under Florida public-records law. The city did not release the 28 minutes of audio from which the transcripts were written.

At 2:48 a.m., the negotiator called Mateen, who was holding hostages inside the club. Throughout the calls, Mateen said he committed the attack to “to stop the U.S. airstrikes” on Iraq and Syria.

Mateen referred to a U.S.-led airstrike on May 6 that killed Abu Wahib, an Islamic State military commander in Iraq, and three other jihadists, according to the Pentagon.

“That’s what triggered it, OK?” Mateen said. “They should have not bombed and killed Abu (Wahib).”

Mateen referred to himself by name only once.

“Call me Mujahideen, call me the soldier of God,” Mateen said.

Mateen likened himself to other militants behind recent violence, telling the negotiator he was attacking because the “U.S. is collaborating with Russia and they are killing innocent women and children.”

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