Orlando shooting: How gunman Omar Mateen was linked to first American suicide bomber in Syria

Orlando shooting: How gunman Omar Mateen was linked to first American suicide bomber in Syria

The gunman who massacred 49 people at a gay club in Florida was partly “inspired” by the first American suicide bomber in Syria, it has emerged.

Omar Mateen had what the FBI described as a “casual” connection with Moner Mohammad Abu-Salha and attended the same mosque.

Investigators questioned Mateen over the link in 2014 but found no “ties of any consequence” and dropped the probe.

American suicide attacker Moner Mohammad Abu-Salha, who was known among rebels as Hurayra al-Amriki (AP)

But Abu-Salha’s name came up again in the early hours of Sunday morning, as his former acquaintance expressed admiration for other terrorists in a 911 call as he carried out his massacre.

James Comey, the director of the FBI, said that over three separate calls from the Pulse nightclub he pledged allegiance to the leader of the so-called Islamic State, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

“But he also appeared to claim solidarity with the perpetrators of the Boston Marathon bombing, and solidarity with a Florida man who died as a suicide bomber in Syria for al-Nusra Front, a group in conflict with Islamic State,” he continued.

“The bombers at the Boston Marathon and the suicide bomber from Florida were not inspired by Isil (Isis), which adds a little bit to the confusion about his motives.”

Jabhat al-Nusra was founded as the Syrian branch of Isis – then al-Qaeda’s “Islamic State of Iraq” – but the two factions split in February 2014 following a power struggle.

Isis went on to declare independence under al-Baghdadi’s leadership, while Jabhat al-Nusra retained its loyalty to al-Qaeda, starting a bloody rivalry between the two extremist groups.

Abu-Salha, a Palestinian-American, left Florida to move to Jordan in 2012 and then disappeared, with friends assuming he was recruited to fight in the Syrian civil war.

Jabhat al-Nusra hailed the 22-year-old as the first US citizen to carry out a “martyrdom operation” in May 2014, driving a vehicle bomb into a checkpoint held by government forces in Ariha, Idlib province.

Under the war name of Abu Hurayra al-Amriki, he was seen in a propaganda video tearing, biting, and burning his American passport.

The extent of his link to Mateen remains unclear but the would-be gunman’s name flagged in the FBI’s investigation in the months after his death.

“We learned from the investigation that the killer knew him casually from attending the same mosque in that area of Florida (Fort Pierce),”  Mr Comey said.

“Our investigation turned up no ties of any consequence between the two of them… we interviewed the killer to find out whether he had any significant contacts with the suicide bomber from Nusra, determined that he did not, and then the inquiry continued focusing on the suicide bomber with no further focus on the Orlando killer.”