Omar Mateen, the 29-year-old who killed 49 people and injured 53 others at an Orlando gay nightclub early Sunday morning, made multiple posts to Facebook and made 16 phone calls while he was carrying out the attack,
Fox News reports.
Senate Homeland Security Chairman Ron Johnson of Wisconsin
wrote a letter to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg asking for his company's help in the investigation, Fox reports.
According to Johnson, his staff has learned that Mateen had five Facebook accounts and searched for "Pulse Orlando and "shooting" during his rampage. Pulse is the name of the club where Mateen carried out his attack.
Mateen's posts to Facebook included:
"America and Russia stop bombing the Islamic state..I pledge my alliance to [Islamic State leader] abu bakr al Baghdadi..may Allah accept me."
"The real muslims will never accept the filthy ways of the west"
"You kill innocent women and children by doing us airstrikes..now taste the Islamic state vengeance."
Mateen's final post, according to Johnson, read, "In the next few days you will see attacks from the Islamic state in the usa."
Mateen also made 16 cell phone calls during the attack, Fox reports. Four of those were previously known, including three to 911 and one to a local television station in which he pledged allegiance to ISIS.
Mateen's social media accounts were taken down quickly after the attacks, but Johnson's staff was able to uncover at least some of them, Fox reports.
The killer also made searches of the couple who carried out the San Bernardino attack and searched for "Baghdadi Speech," Johnson told Fox News.
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