June 14, 2016


ORLANDO SHOOTING UPDATES


MATEEN’S TERRORISM ASSOCIATIONS AND ALLEDGEDLY RADICAL MOSQUE


http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/orlando-nightclub-massacre/omar-mateen-s-wife-tried-talk-him-out-orlando-attack-n592051

Omar Mateen's Wife Tried to Talk Him Out of Orlando Attack, Sources Say
by PETE WILLIAMS, TOM WINTER, JONATHAN DIENST and KEN DILANIAN
ORLANDO NIGHTCLUB MASSACRE JUN 14 2016, 12:27 PM ET

Video -- NBC News Nightly report on wife, Orlando Gunman's Wife Tried to Talk Him Out of Attack 3:24
Photograph -- Noor Mateen and her husband Pulse gunman, Omar Mateen, from a Facebook profile photo. via Facebook, She is cooperating with investigators, several officials say.


The Orlando gunman's wife has told federal agents she tried to talk her husband out of carrying out the attack, NBC News has learned.

Omar Mateen's wife, Noor Zahi Salman, told the FBI she was with him when he bought ammunition and a holster, several officials familiar with the case said. She told the FBI that she once drove him to the gay nightclub, Pulse, because he wanted to scope it out.

Mateen opened fire at Pulse early Sunday, leaving 49 dead and 53 injured. Twenty-seven victims remained hospitalized Tuesday. Six were in critical condition, according to hospital officials who said the death toll was still at risk of rising because one or two of those patients were "profoundly ill."

Authorities are considering filing criminal charges against Noor for failing to tell them what she knew before the brutal attack, law enforcement officials say, but no decision has been made.

Mateen died in a shootout with police following the worst mass shooting in modern U.S. history — and the most deadly act of terror in the country since 9/11.

Mateen, 29, was born in New York to Afghan immigrants described by one family friend as loving, close-knit and "very respectful" of America. His clan ended up in Florida, where he attended Indian River State College in Fort Pierce, a two-hour drive south of Orlando. He graduated with an associate of science degree in criminal justice technology in 2006, and later got a job as a private security guard. He was fascinated with law enforcement, people who knew him said.

He was married twice, and was the father of a 3-year-old boy.



PEOPLE SPEAKING WARMLY OF MATEEN’S FRIENDLINESS


http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/orlando-nightclub-massacre/orlando-killer-s-identity-shocks-community-he-once-guarded-n592426

Orlando Killer's Identity Shocks Community He Once Guarded
by TRYMAINE LEE
ORLANDO NIGHTCLUB MASSACRE JUN 14 2016, 6:40 PM ET

Related: Omar Mateen's Wife Says She Tried to Talk Him Out of Orlando Attack
Related: FBI Investigating Whether Orlando Gunman Visited Club Before Attack
Play Video -- Orlando Shooting Survivor: 'The Guilt of Being Grateful to Be Alive Is Heavy' 1:34
Photograph -- Janet Howe pictured at Main Street Village Pantry. Trymaine Lee / NBC News
Related: What We Know About The Victims of the Orlando Attack
Related: Obama Decries Trump's Muslim Ban, Asks 'Where Does This Stop?'
Play -- Gunman's Ex-Wife: He Was Once 'Charming' But Changed 1:05
Related: Newspapers on Display at a shop in the Main Street Village Pantry. Trymaine Lee / NBC News


PORT ST. LUCIE, Florida — For years Omar Mateen was a welcomed fixture at PGA Village, the tony residential expanse that includes one of America's premier golf clubs and resorts.

He worked as a security guard at the front gate, a trusted position responsible for maintaining order, welcoming visitors and waving off any suspicious characters, ne'er do wells or miscreants.

"I saw him at the gate all the time and he was very professional," said Lonnie Gillum, who owns a place in the village and travels between there and Michigan. "That's exactly how I'd describe him: professional and polite."

Residents say Mateen's smile was a welcome change from many of the other stoic guards who stood like sentries at the gates of the lush resort.

"He was so friendly and nice to us," said Rose Barondness, whose parents own a place there. "He was my parents' favorite security guard."

Mateen was such a routine part of Rose and her husband Mark's experience when they'd visit her parents that the family jokingly referred to Mateen as "Your Guy" to Rose, she said.

"We never saw him without a smile," said Barondness, who works as a makeup-artist for NBC Universal in Washington, DC.

The fond memories of the polite, affable young man who protected the well-to-do families behind the gates at PGA Village were shredded over the weekend when news began to spread that Barondness's "guy" was the killer behind one of the most horrific acts of terror in modern American history.

Early Sunday Mateen, armed with an assault rifle and a pistol, walked into a gay nightclub in Orlando and murdered 49 people and wounded more than 50. Mateen was eventually shot and killed by police.

The killings have gripped the nation as investigators are slowly unraveling a spool of hate, at once apparently seeded by Islamic radicalism and virulent homophobia.

Investigators say Mateen, the New York-born son of immigrants from Afghanistan, had traveled to the Middle East twice in recent years and that he had at least some contact with another local, American born terrorist, Moner Mohammad Abu-Salha. Salha, who attended the same mosque as Mateen and was the first American-born suicide bomber in Syria.

Even before the mass killing at Pulse nightclub, there were signs that Mateen wasn't as friendly as he appeared to some residents.

Former co-worker Daniel Gilroy described him as a racist with anger management issues, and became so concerned he asked for a transfer. Mateen's ex-wife described him as abusive.

Officials said Mateen called 911 and declared loyalty to the leader of the terror group ISIS shortly before opening fire.

But more than just radicalism, investigators are looking into claims by several regulars at Pulse that Mateen had been a somewhat regular patron of the place. Others have said that they recognized him from Grindr, a gay dating app, and that Mateen had propositioned men for sex or dates.

Details about Mateen's private life stood in contrast to the man many residents saw as happy-go-lucky with an easy smile and steady demeanor.

"When I saw his picture on the news, I said 'I know that guy,'" Gillum, one of the residents, said. "I'm in total disbelief."

Janet Howe, a clerk at the Main Street Village Pantry, a stone's throw from the entrance of the village, said she'd talked with Mateen on several occasions and never once sensed anything amiss. "I feel horribly betrayed. We all trusted him," Howe said.

"There are people who come in here and give me goose bumps. Never with him," Howe said. "But now, now I can't even think of him without getting them — and to know that ISIS is here."

"In our backyard," added a woman at Howe's register.

Mark Barondness, Rose's husband, said that his once chummy relationship with Mateen has left him sickened.

"Whenever I would come up to the guy he would start laughing because he knew that I would start teasing him," Mark Barondness said. "He was like a body builder and if you saw me, I'm like the anti-body builder. I would joke with him about him trying to obtain my look."

Mateen told Mark he wanted to be a cop one day and that he was just working security as part of his training. He would tease Mark Barondness's in-laws, who had a transponder and could go through the gates without being checked, yelling over to them, "why don't you come over and visit me anymore!"

"My parents are in shock," Rose Barondness said. "They are very upset that they trusted a person that could do these horrific things," she said.

Rose and Mark last saw Mateen during a visit in February. She would make a point of running by the front gate during her jogs.

"I would run past there and wave so they would see that I'm there and keep an eye on me," Rose Barondness said. "He'd wave at me when he'd see me running or walking the dog. You would never not feel safe. Now, I'm getting the chills every time I think about him. I'm nauseous."



POSSIBLE SOURCES OF RADICALIZATION



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Counterjihad

Counterjihad
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Counterjihad is a political current consisting of organizations, bloggers and activists all linked by a common belief that the West is being subjected to takeover by Muslims.[1] While the roots of the movement go back to the 1980s, it did not gain significant momentum until after the September 11 attacks in 2001. It has been variously dubbed anti-Islamic,[2][3][4] or islamophobic,[5][6][7] or far-right.[2][7][8]

The authors of Right-Wing Populism in Europe: Politics and Discourse describe the movement as heavily relying on two key tactics. "The first is arguing that the most radical Muslims – men like Osama bin Laden – are properly interpreting the Quran, while peaceful moderate Muslims either do not understand their own holy book or are strategically faking their moderation. The second key tactic is to relentlessly attack individuals and organizations that purport to represent moderate Islam...painting them as secret operatives in a grand Muslim scheme to destroy the West."[9]



https://counterjihadreport.com/2016/06/14/what-is-orlando-terrorists-imam-hiding-mateen-was-no-outsider-at-radical-mosque-his-father-helped-run-it/

What Is Orlando Terrorist’s Imam Hiding? Mateen Was No ‘Outsider’ at Radical Mosque; His Father Helped Run It
CounterJihad, by Paul Sperry –@paulsperry_ , June 14, 2016:
Posted on June 14, 2016

Photograph -- Siddique Mateen served as a director and vice president of the Islamic Center of Fort Pierce, home to two jihadist murderers.


Florida state records reveal the gay-bashing, Taliban-loving father of the terrorist who massacred gay nightclub-goers helped run the small area mosque where his son worshipped, and local authorities and neighbors say the Islamic center was a “breeding ground” for terrorists.

The revelations call into question claims by the mosque’s cleric, who has maintained in media interviews he had little interaction with terrorist Omar Seddique Mateen and hardly knew the gunman who regularly attended his mosque. They also contradict assertions his mosque is moderate and only teaches “peace.”

Islamic Center of Fort Pierce Imam Syed Shafeeq Ur Rahman insisted he never preached anything that would have radicalized Mateen and, for that matter, never even had a conversation with him.

“Personally know him? No. Because he came, last minute, he pray and he leave,” Rahman said in broken English. “We don’t socialize. How would I know (him)?”

The imam also claimed the 29-year-old Mateen was not a member of the mosque, portraying him instead as a marginal figure, an outsider.

In fact, Mateen worshipped at the tiny, 130-member mosque for more than 13 years, praying there three to four times a week.

More importantly, his father shared leadership duties at the mosque for several years with Rahman as the mosque president’s second in command.

According to Florida state articles of incorporation papers filed and signed by Rahman, Siddique Mateen (aka Seddique Mir Mateen) served as a director and vice president of the Islamic Center of Fort Pierce under Rahman, who’s listed as president.

Congregants say Mateen’s father would pray alongside his son at the mosque. When pressed in a phone interview to explain how he managed to avoid for more than a decade any conversation with the son of such a top official — indeed the No. 2 officer in the mosque — Rahman hung up the phone.

Odder still, Rahman was familiar with other members of the Mateen family, all of whom attended the mosque. It turns out that Omar Mateen’s three sisters regularly worked in the mosque, performing cleaning and other duties.

Rahman said he is cooperating with FBI agents who are asking questions about Mateen. But it’s hardly the first time federal investigators have visited the mosque. They’ve been there in the past when there have been other violent acts tied to Muslim worshipers.

In 2014, for example, FBI agents wanted to know if a young American suicide bomber had been radicalized at the mosque. It turns out that the Islamic Center of Fort Pierce was also the spiritual home of Moner Mohammad Abusalha, who is believed to have been the first American suicide bomber in Syria.

Abusalha left his car at the mosque before flying to Syria, where he joined a branch of al-Qaida and in May 2014 detonated a massive bomb in a truck he was driving on the battlefield.

Two years later, Abusalha’s mosque buddy Omar Mateen would also “martyr” himself in a jihadist attack on the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, slaughtering 49 innocent people before dying in a hail of bullets fired by SWAT police.

It marked the second time in 24 months that someone in Rahman’s flock had committed a deadly act of terrorism. Coincidence?

Just two days before Mateen shot 102 people, he prayed at Rahman’s mosque. That was Friday night. On Sunday night, he called a 911 operator and expressed his solidarity with his old pal Abusalha, who shared his homicidal hatred for homosexuals. Both believed gays should be killed for their “sin,” citing sacred Islamic texts calling for the death penalty.

Where would they get such homophobic notions? Rahman insists they didn’t come from the mosque.

“There is nothing that he is hearing from me to do killing, to do bloodshed, to do anything,” he said, “because we never talk like that.”

Added Rahman: “There is no teaching of extremism in this mosque.”

But the preacher acknowledged that “in Islam, being gay is a sin,” and in fact, he equates homosexuals with liars and thieves.

Such anti-homosexual views were also passed on by trustees of the mosque, including most notably, Siddique Mateen.

The former official and current member of the mosque, who emigrated from Afghanistan, not only openly praised the Taliban, who stoned homosexuals to death in Afghanistan, but preached that homosexuals should be punished.

In a video posted the day after his son massacred gay club-goers, Mateen declared: “God will punish those involved in homosexuality.”

Despite his public show of patriotism, Siddique Mateen was also known to preach anti-U.S. rhetoric. It appears to have rubbed on his son, who once told classmates that America got what it “deserves” on 9/11.

Sources says the mosque, which was converted from an old church in the early 1990s, promotes the teachings of Maulana Abul Ala Maududi, the late Pakistani radical and contemporary of Muslim Brotherhood founder Hassan al-Banna. Maududi preached that Islam will destroy the West. Before the 9/11 attacks, he ominously warned: “A time will come when capitalistic democracy will tremble for its safety in Washington and New York.”

He also said: “The objective of Islamic jihad is to put an end to the dominance of the un-Islamic systems of government and replace them with Islamic rule.”

“Islam wishes to do away with all states and governments anywhere which are opposed to this ideology and program of Islam,” Maududi also wrote. “Islam requires the earth — not just a portion, but the entire planet.”

In a national security speech Monday, Donald Trump said terrorism investigators have to take a closer look at Mateen’s place of worship.

“We need to know if he was affiliated with any radical mosques or radical activists,” the presumptive GOP presidential nominee asserted.



https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/ex-wife-of-suspected-orlando-shooter-he-beat-me/2016/06/12/8a1963b4-30b8-11e6-8ff7-7b6c1998b7a0_story.html

National Security
‘He was not a stable person’: Orlando shooter showed signs of emotional trouble
By Adam Goldman, Joby Warrick and Max Bearak
June 12, 2016

Photograph -- The scene in Orlando after a gunman opened fire at a nightclub
View Photos -- Officials say at least 49 people were killed and dozens more were injured in the shooting.
Video -- The gunman who killed at least 50 people in a shooting rampage at an Orlando nightclub has been identified as 29-year-old Omar Mateen. Here is what we know about him so far. (Deirdra O'Regan/The Washington Post)
An article Source: Checkpoint newsletter, Military, defense and security at home and abroad.
Video -- Orlando gunman's ex-wife: 'I was getting abused' Play Video1:54, Sitora Yusifiy described her ex-husband and Orlando shooter Omar Mateen as "mentally unstable and mentally ill." She said her family "rescued" her from their abusive marriage. (Reuters)
Related: [50 dead in worse mass shooting in U.S. history]
Related: [‘It was just complete chaos’: survivors on the struggle to stay alive]
Related: [Another national tragedy drives Americans further apart]
Related: [Orlando rampage reflects convergence of terrorism and mass shootings]


Sometime after 2 a.m. Sunday, Omar Mateen dialed Orlando’s 911 service to alert the dispatcher to the carnage unfolding at one of the city’s most popular gay bars. He spelled out his full name and location, and then he offered an explanation: He was a follower of the Islamic State.

By 5 a.m., Mateen lay dead, killed in a gun battle with police in a violent finale to the worst mass shooting in U.S. history. But while the enormity of the crime was quickly apparent, authorities were just beginning to sort through the jumble of motives that may have led the 29-year-old immigrant’s son to open fire on scores of young men and women inside the Pulse nightclub.

While Mateen claimed allegiance to Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, no evidence had emerged by late Sunday pointing to actual ties to terrorist groups or a significant association with jihadist causes. And although family members said Mateen had expressed anger about homosexuality, the shooter had no record of previous hate crimes.

He had twice come under investigation by the FBI — once for comments suggesting an affinity for Islamist groups, and a second time for vague connections to another Florida man who traveled to Syria to become a suicide bomber. Neither probe turned up evidence of wrongdoing, and Mateen had a blemish-free record when he applied for a Florida license to carry concealed weapons and again when he legally purchased two firearms, including an assault-style semiautomatic rifle, just a few days before the shootings.

Indeed, as the first day of the investigation neared an end, U.S. officials struggled over how exactly to label the attack, which President Obama described on Sunday as both “an act of terror and an act of hate.”

“We have reached no definitive conclusions,” Obama said at a news conference, adding: “What is clear is that he was a person filled with hate.”

Also clear is the fact that, until the past week, Mateen appears to have lived a relatively quiet life, as a security guard and father of a young son who kept a modest two-bedroom condominium in Fort Pierce, a town on east Florida’s central coast.

Born in New York, he was the son of an Afghan immigrant who moved his family to Florida when Mateen was a child. The older Mateen would eventually open a business and attempt to dabble in Afghan politics from afar, starting a YouTube channel in Florida in which he sometimes expressed favorable views about the Taliban.

Mateen would spend his youth and young adulthood in Florida, attending a local high school and obtaining an associate’s degree in criminal justice from nearby Indian River State College in 2006, according to college spokeswoman Michelle Abaldo. He held jobs as a security guard and appeared to have a fondness for law enforcement, having once talked to friends about becoming a police officer. In a series of Myspace photos, ­Mateen is seen taking selfies wearing New York Police Department shirts.

Florida public records confirm that Mateen had a permit to carry a concealed weapon and was a licensed security guard, first at a facility for juvenile delinquents and later for G4S, a security company.

But there also were early signs of emotional trouble and a volatile temper, according to Sitora Yusifiy, who was briefly married to Mateen. Yusifiy described Mateen as an abusive husband who beat her repeatedly while they were married.

“He was not a stable person,” she told The Washington Post. “He beat me. He would just come home and start beating me up because the laundry wasn’t finished or something like that.”

Yusifiy said she met ­Mateen through an online dating service and eventually agreed to move to Florida to be with him. The two married in March 2009 and moved into the Fort Pierce condo that Mateen’s family owned.

“He seemed like a normal human being,” said Yusifiy, who divorced Mateen in 2011.

Acquaintances gave conflicting views about Mateen’s religiosity. Yusifiy said her former husband wasn’t very devout and preferred spending his free time working out at the gym. She said in the few months they were married he gave no signs of having fallen under the sway of radical Islam.

“He was a very private person,” she said.

Mateen later had a son with another woman who also appears to have left him and declined to comment when reached at her current home.

But one friend said Mateen became steadily more religious after his divorce and went on a religious pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia.

“He was quite religious,” said the friend, who also spoke on the condition of anonymity. Yet, he added, if Mateen had sympathies for the Islamic State or other terrorist groups, he never mentioned them.

For several years, Mateen regularly attended the Islamic Center of Fort Pierce and was there as recently as two days ago, said Imam Shafiq Rahman on Sunday.

The imam said Mateen’s father and young son would pray with him, and Mateen’s three sisters were active volunteers at the mosque, which had about 150 congregants.

“He was the most quiet guy; he never talked to anyone,” Rahman said, gripping a loop of black and red prayer beads as he held forth in a dingy corridor adorned with images of the Arabic alphabet rendered by children who come here for religious instruction. “He would come and pray and leave. There was no indication at all that he would do something violent.” Mateen never sought any spiritual guidance from him, Rahman said.

But Rahman’s 20-year-old son, a University of Florida senior who declined to provide his first name, recalled Mateen as an “aggressive person.”

“It was just his demeanor,” he said. “He used to work out a lot.”

Mateen’s father, Seddique ­Mateen, insisted in interviews Sunday that his son’s violent deeds had nothing to do with religion. He said Mateen had become enraged a few months earlier at the sight of a pair of gay men being affectionate with each other.

“We were in downtown Miami, Bayside, people were playing music. And he saw two men kissing each other in front of his wife and kid and he got very angry,” the father told NBC News. “They were kissing each other and touching each other and he said, ‘Look at that. In front of my son they are doing that.’ ”

Seddique Mateen had himself become embroiled in controversy as the host of the “Durand Jirga Show” on a channel called Payam-e-Afghan, which broadcasts from California. In it, the elder Mateen speaks in the Dari language on a variety of political subjects. Dozens of videos are posted on a channel under Seddique Mateen’s name on YouTube. A phone number and post office box that are displayed on the show were traced back to the Mateen home in Florida. Mateen also owns a nonprofit organization under the name Durand Jirga, which is registered in Port St. Lucie, Fla.

In one video, the elder Mateen expresses gratitude toward the Afghan Taliban, while denouncing the Pakistani government.

“Our brothers in Waziristan, our warrior brothers in [the] Taliban movement and national Afghan Taliban are rising up,” he said. “Inshallah the Durand Line issue will be solved soon.”

It is unclear if his statements ever attracted the attention of the FBI.

The Durand Line was drawn as a demarcation of British and Afghan spheres of influence in 1893. The historical line is a source of conflict for members of the Pashtun ethnic group, whose homeland straddles the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Just hours before the Orlando shooting, Seddique Mateen posted a video on a Facebook page called “Provisional Government of Afghanistan — Seddique ­Mateen.” In it, he seems to be pretending to be Afghanistan’s president, and he orders the arrest of an array of Afghan political figures.

“I order national army, national police and intelligence department to immediately imprison Karzai, Ashraf Ghani, Zalmay Khalilzad, Atmar, and Sayyaf. They are against our countrymen, and against our homeland,” he says, while dressed in army fatigues.

William Wan, Steve Friess and Brian E. Crowley in Fort Pierce, Fla., and Julie Tate, Jennifer Jenkins and Alice Crites in Washington contributed to this report.

Adam Goldman reports on terrorism and national security for The Washington Post. Follow @adamgoldmanwp
Joby Warrick joined the Post’s national staff in 1996. He has covered national security, the environment, and the Middle East, and currently writes about terrorism. Follow @jobywarrick
Max Bearak writes about foreign affairs for the Washington Post. Previously, he reported from South Asia for the New York Times and others. Follow @maxbearak



http://www.foxnews.com/us/2016/06/12/orlando-gunman-tied-to-radical-imam-released-from-prison-last-year-say-law-enforcement-sources.html

Orlando gunman tied to radical imam released from prison last year, say law enforcement sources
By Malia Zimmerman
Published June 12, 2016 FoxNews.com

Video --
Photograph -- 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) (The Associated Press)


EDITOR'S NOTE: Orlando's mayor on Monday revised the death toll in the nightclub shooting to 49, from 50. The 50th body was identified as gunman Omar Mateen.

The gunman who murdered at least 50 people in a Florida nightclub early Sunday morning was a follower of a controversial gang leader-turned-bank robber who was released from prison last year despite warnings from prosecutors that he would recruit people to carry out violent acts, sources told FoxNews.com.

Omar Mateen, whose bloody siege inside a packed Orlando gay nightclub ended when SWAT teams stormed the building and killed him, was a radical Muslim who followed Marcus Dwayne Robertson, a law enforcement source said.

“It is no coincidence that this happened in Orlando,” said a law enforcement source familiar with Robertson’s history of recruiting terrorists and inciting violence. “Mateen was enrolled in [Robertson’s online] Fundamental Islamic Knowledge Seminary.”

Robertson and several associates were rounded up for questioning early Sunday, according to law enforcement sources, a development his attorney refused to confirm or deny.

“No comment,” Corey Cohen said in an email reply when asked if his longtime client was in custody. Police also did not confirm or deny picking up Robertson.

Robertson's school may not have been the only source of Mateen's spiritual guidance. The gunman was at the Islamic Center of Fort Pierce with Imam Shafiq Rahman two days before the nightclub attack, according to The Washington Post. That mosque was frequented by American-born suicide bomber Monar abu Salha, who blew himself up in Syria in 2014, and the two knew each other, according to officials. Mateen's association with Salha led the FBI to interview him in 2014. Rep. Michael McCaul, chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee Mike McCaul told Fox News law enforcement determined at the time their contact “was minimal.”

FoxNews.com has reported extensively on Robertson, a former U.S. Marine who served as a bodyguard to the Blind Sheik involved in the 1993 World Trade Center Attack and led a gang of New York bank robbers called “Ali Baba and the 40 Thieves” before resurfacing in Orlando, where he started an Islamic seminary.

The school, recently renamed the Timbuktu Seminary, is operated by Robertson, a 47-year-old firebrand known to his thousands of followers as Abu Taubah.

Robertson, who recently spent four years in prison in Florida on illegal weapons and tax fraud charges before being released by a Florida judge one year ago, has openly and enthusiastically preached against homosexuality. The targets of Mateen’s bloody rampage were members of the gay community of Orlando, 120 miles from the 29-year-old’s home in Fort Pierce.

Prosecutors said wiretaps from 2011 proved Robertson instructed one of his students, Jonathan Paul Jimenez, to file false tax returns to obtain a tax refund to pay for travel to Mauritania for terror training.

Jimenez studied with Robertson for a year in preparation for his travel to Mauritania, where he would study and further his training in killing, suicide bombing, and identifying and murdering U.S. military personnel. He pleaded guilty in 2012 to lying to authorities and conspiring to defraud the IRS and was sentenced to 10 years in federal prison.

Robertson was arrested on a firearms charge in 2011 and pleaded guilty in January 2012. On March 14, 2012, federal authorities charged him with conspiring to defraud the IRS, which he was convicted of in December 2013.

While in the John E. Polk Correctional Facility in Seminole County, Robertson was considered so dangerous, he was kept in shackles and assigned his own guards. Whenever he was transported to court, a seven-car caravan of armed federal marshals escorted him. He was initially moved into solitary confinement after prison authorities believed he was radicalizing up to 36 of his fellow prisoners.

In seeking enhanced terrorism charges during sentencing for the two crimes, prosecutors said Robertson has been involved with terrorism activities, “…focused on training others to commit violent acts as opposed to committing them himself” … “overseas instead of inside the United States.”

Yet efforts by federal prosecutors to tack on another 10 years to his sentence, based on enhanced terrorism charges under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, were not persuasive enough for U.S. District Judge Gregory Presnell, who freed Robertson in June 2015 with time served.

Robertson had denied being involved with terrorist activities, in court and in postings on social media and in statements from his attorney to Fox News.

Federal law enforcement has been familiar with Robertson since 1991.

As a former U.S. Marine who became the leader known as "Ali Baba” of a notorious New York gang “Ali Baba and the 40 Thieves”, Robertson and his crew robbed more than 10 banks, private homes and post offices at gunpoint, shot three police officers, and attacked one cop after he was injured by a homemade pipe bomb.

During the same period, federal authorities claimed Robertson served as a bodyguard to Omar Abdel Rahman, nicknamed the “Blind Sheik,” who led the terrorist group that carried out the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center and donated more than $300,000 in stolen funds to mosques he attended, both claims Robertson denied. Robertson has adamantly denied the claims.

After he was arrested in 1991 along with most of the other members of the gang, prosecutors cut a deal with Robertson, and let him serve four years in prison before going to work undercover for the FBI between 2004 and 2007 to document terrorists’ plans and networks in Africa, Egypt and the United States.

Many of the court’s filings, including Robertson’s own testimony from his most recent criminal case, remain under federal seal, which means only prosecutors, the judge and the defense can review the records.

Cohen told FoxNews.com in a statement that his client “never taught or condoned violence in any way.”

“In fact for his federal case the judge did not find terrorist acts, which led to his sentence of time served,” Cohen said.



MORE ON "RADICAL ISLAM" AND OUR COUNTRY'S NEED TO CRACK THE PROBLEM


ABOUT THE NEWS SOURCE: “The Counter Jihad Report”

According to Wikipedia, the term “counterjihad” is one used by rightleaning and possibly paranoid individuals, but “The Counter Jihad Report” does specifically mention interesting information about the mosque at Fort Pierce where the Orlando shooter supposedly attended, and the father as being very active in the running of the Mosque. Counter Jihad’s thesis is that a disturbing number of people who have committed atrocities like this have been members there. TRUE OR NOT?? I’ll try to find out. Just because a group is fascist doesn’t mean everything they say is false, after all. It does mean that their viewpoint is warped, and they may be mentally ill. I don’t think healthy people are full of hate.

So, given that the news source is known to be biased and the specific text here, especially in some portions of the article, is obviously anti-Islamic – I am presenting the article because if there are any accurate facts in the article, it is worth reading along with other sources, because the writer seems to know some detail about that particular mosque. I don’t want to see mosques or imams persecuted, but it is known that some imams are radical and intellectually dangerous to susceptible young men who want the security of a “movement” and an outlet for their anger. I think it’s never purely about religion, but about identity concepts. If we as citizens of any nation, American in this case, can simply see ourselves as citizens and not soldiers; we could possibly have the kind of safe place that we all think we want. Putting the whole country under house arrest in order to achieve total control simply won't work, and would just make us another dictatorship. Life is fraught.

We tend to look only at the Internet as being the contaminating influence in these ISIS wannabe cases, but it may well be a true “homegrown” radicalization case. There are enough Americans becoming radicalized that we probably should be looking at local sources of anti-Western preaching and indoctrination more actively. The problem is, that we cannot under our present laws, arrest or otherwise disturb anyone, even if he is a political radical of some type, without evidence of pending criminal activity or intent. We may need to modify our laws to admit the incarceration of certain leaders like the several known radical imams, and keep a sharper eye on them all, especially focusing on "their fruit" -- any young men who attend that mosque who do break out of line and do something violent like this. I don’t know how to do it, though, because Martin Luther King might be such a leader in a strictly rationalist sense, in that he was clearly political. His followers were strictly told to use passive means, however. They didn't attack anyone. Of course the tradition of civil disobedience by religious people goes all the way back to the Christians and Jews versus the Romans, and I find it very moving when people band together to achieve something good. The kind of thing we are seeing, though, is about pointless and horrible killing, which is never good. One thing is very clear. As simple common sense, we need to get assault weapons off the streets.

Believing in a religious or political view which is known to have sometimes become a danger – almost always an offshoot of a benign religion -- but which is not in itself a crime, simply is not grounds for police or FBI intervention. We have freedom of association in the US, and I want to keep it. As a result of that, though, this man Mateen was allowed to buy his guns without interference – or perhaps Mateen’s name never was mentioned to law enforcement as being a danger to society. Maybe the FBI was too tightlipped about their information. Such people’s names certainly should be put on the list of those who may not buy a gun. Perhaps some would call me fascist leaning if I suggested a mandatory legal intervention if a known unstable person of any sort presents himself at a gun store and tries to buy a gun, and especially an assault rifle. Saying you want to commit suicide will cause you to be Baker Acted, so why not giving any evidence that we want to kill others? I also think that when anyone goes to buy a gun he should state the use for it, and those AK47s etc. should not be on US streets at all. Given the problems we have as a society about it, “recreational use” such as target practice should be prohibited. It’s a form of male fantasy that is harmful to society. I think that Mateen’s getting his gun is the kind of loophole that we need to eliminate from our gun control laws, because he did have a history of association with known radicals.

How can we successfully track and prevent all such dangerous and ILLEGAL activity from coming to fruition? That may not be possible. This isn’t yet a fascist country. We don’t post government security cameras all over the cities yet, though I think that is being done in several US cities and in Britain, too, I heard. I don’t think most US cities have done that yet. I do fear that if we become totally oriented to constant vigilance toward outsiders, though, we may be just like a police state soon.

I personally believe in the old saws like “If you see something, say something.” “Step up and lend a hand,” if you see someone being assaulted or stalked. If someone is obviously peeping in a window or trying to break in a door, call the police, and quickly. If a person is being threatened on the street, walk up to the attacker and tell them at the top of your voice, “Leave her/him alone!” Bullies and criminals don’t want a witness and they usually don’t want to fight anyone else either. Most of the time they will turn and run if strongly confronted. If you see things like a suitcase or a knapsack left alone for more than a few minutes in a public place, call the management or the police. It could be a bomb. If you see lots of people going in and out of an apartment on your hallway, especially at 2:00 AM or so, tell the management or the police. It’s probably just a case of prostitution or drug sales, but it could be a nest of radicals of any variety whatsoever – Trumpites, for instance, and as such they should be stopped. Don’t do anything like hang around outside their door trying to listen to what’s going on inside, like a heroine in a good old fashioned Gothic Novel, though. Doing that could get you killed!