Omar Mateen: religious man, bipolar or Islamic State terrorist?
This undated image provided by the Orlando Police Department shows Omar Mateen, the shooting suspect at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Fla., Sunday, June 12, 2016. The gunman opened fire inside the crowded gay nightclub early Sunday before dying in a gunfight with SWAT officers, police said. (Orlando Police Department via AP)
FORT PIERCE, Florida—There were conflicting profiles of the 29-year-old Omar Mateen who opened fire at a gay nightclub in Orlando early Sunday, leaving 50 people dead and 53 wounded.
He was a religious man who attended the local mosque, according to an imam. But Mateen’s ex-wife said he was bipolar with mental issues.
Even so, both Imam Syed Shafeeq Rahman and the ex-wife, Sitora Yusufiy, voiced doubts Mateen had anything to do with the Islamic State (IS) group, an angle police investigators are looking into.
Mateen was the son of an Afghan immigrant who had a talk show in the United States, the nature of which was not entirely clear: A former Afghan official said the program was pro-Taliban but a former colleague said it was enthusiastically pro-American.
Rahman said Mateen attended evening prayer services at the city’s Islamic Center three to four times a week, most recently with his young son.
Although Mateen was not very social, he also showed no signs of violence, according to the imam. He said he last saw Mateen on Friday.
“When he finished prayer he would just leave,” Rahman told The Associated Press (AP). “He would not socialize with anybody. He would be quiet. He would be very peaceful.”
‘Mentally unstable’
Yusufiy said her ex-husband was bipolar. “He was mentally unstable and mentally ill,” she told reporters in Boulder, Colorado.
Although records show the couple didn’t divorce for two years after the marriage, Yusufiy said she was actually with Mateen for only four months because he was abusive.
She said he would not let her speak to her family and that family members had to come and literally pull her out of his arms.
Authorities immediately began investigating whether Sunday’s attack was an act of terrorism. A law enforcement official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the gunman made a 911 call from the nightclub professing allegiance to the leader of the Islamic State (IS) group, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.
Yusufiy said she was “devastated, shocked, started shaking and crying” when she heard about the shooting, but she attributed the violence to Mateen’s mental illness—not to any alliance with terrorist groups.
Rahman agreed. “My personal opinion is that this has nothing to do with IS,” he said.
Father speaks
Seddique Mir Mateen, the father of the shooter, is a life insurance salesman who started a group in 2010 called Durand Jirga Inc., according to Qasim Tarin, a businessman from California who was a Durand Jirga board member.
The name refers to the Durand line, the long disputed border between Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Tarin said Seddique Mir Mateen had a television show on which issues facing Afghanistan were discussed.
“It’s shocking,” he said about the shooting. “(Omar Mateen’s) father loves this country.”
Some of Seddique Mir Mateen’s shows were taped and later posted on YouTube. During one episode, a sign in the background read: “Long live the USA! Long live Afghanistan . . . Afghans are the best friends to the USA.”
Pro-Taliban
But a former Afghan official said the “Durand Jirga Show” appears on Payam-e-Afghan, a California-based channel that supported ethnic solidarity with the Afghan Taliban.
Viewers from Pashtun communities in the United States regularly call in to the channel to espouse support for Pashtun domination of Afghanistan over the nation’s minorities, including Hazaras, Tajiks and Uzbeks, the official said.
The “Durand Jirga Show” expresses support for the Taliban, has an anti-Pakistan slant, complains about foreigners in Afghanistan and criticizes US actions there, the official said.
Seddique Mir Mateen lavished praise on current Afghan President Ashraf Ghani when he appeared on the show in January 2014, but he has since denounced the Ghani government, according to the official, who said that on Saturday, Seddique Mateen appeared on the show dressed in military fatigues and used his program to criticize the current Afghan government.
No criminal record
Mateen purchased at least two firearms legally within the last week or so, according to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.
Mateen had no criminal record. Yusufiy said he wanted to be a police officer and had applied to the police academy. Mateen became a security guard at the G4S company, which identifies itself on its website as “the leading global integrated security company.”
Rahman said he knew Mateen and his family since the shooter was a young boy. Playful as a child, he became more serious as an adult, Rahman said.
He spoke both English and Farsi, and was into body building. He was not, as far as the imam could see, someone who would ever commit such a gruesome act of mass violence.
“It was totally unexpected,” Rahman said. AP
