US probing involvement of others in Orlando

Orlando: US law enforcement officials investigated on Monday whether anyone helped the gunman who massacred 49 people at a gay nightclub in Orlando, but said they did not believe anyone connected to the shooting posed a current danger to the public.

The FBI and other agencies were poring over evidence inside and in the closed-off streets around Orlando's Pulse nightclub, where a shooter pledging allegiance to ISIS carried out the deadliest mass shooting in US history.

The gunman, Omar Mateen, a New York-born Florida resident and US citizen who was the son of Afghan immigrants, was shot and killed by police who stormed the club on Sunday morning with armored cars after a three-hour siege. Officials said on Sunday the death toll was 50. On Monday they clarified that this included Mateen, who was killed by the police.

Law enforcement officials were looking for clues as to whether anyone worked with Mateen on the attack, said Lee Bentley, US Attorney for Florida's middle district. "There is an investigation of other persons, we are working as diligently as we can on that," Bentley told a news conference. "If anyone else was involved in this crime, they will be prosecuted."

Officials emphasized that they believed there had been no other attackers and that they had no evidence of a threat to the public. ISIS reiterated on Monday a claim of responsibility for the attack.

"One of the Caliphate's soldiers in America carried out a security invasion where he was able to enter a crusader gathering at a nightclub for homosexuals in Orlando," the group said in a broadcast on its Albayan Radio

Although the group claimed responsibility, this did not necessarily mean it directed the attack: there was nothing in the claim indicating coordination between the gunman and ISIS before the rampage. Mateen was an armed guard at a gated retirement community, and had worked for the global security firm G4S for nine years.

Source: Reuters