WASHINGTON — Omar Mateen, the gunman in this month’s massacre in an Orlando nightclub, told a crisis negotiator less than an hour after the attack began that the United States needed to “stop bombing Syria and Iraq” and he threatened more attacks in the coming days, according to a partial F.B.I. account released Monday morning.
He warned — falsely, it turned out — that there were bombs in a car outside Pulse nightclub and explosives inside it, and that “you people are gonna get it, and I’m gonna ignite it if they try to do anything stupid.” In a series of calls between 2:35 a.m. and 3:24 a.m. on June 12, during a standoff with the police, Mr. Mateen also spoke in Arabic and claimed responsibility “in the name of God the merciful,” and linked his attack to the terrorist attacks last year in and around Paris.
At a news conference in Orlando, Ronald Hopper, an assistant agent in charge of the bureau’s Tampa Division, said the gunman made 911 calls during the shooting in a “chilling, calm and deliberate manner.”