What to Know About Orlando Shooter Omar Mateen's Father, Seddique Mir Mateen

Impact

As details continue to emerge about Omar Mateen — the 29-year-old Florida man who has been identified as the gunman in the mass shooting at a popular gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, Sunday morning that left 50 people dead, including the shooter — media attention has also turned to his father, Seddique Mir Mateen.

Seddique Mir Mateen was the source of some early information about his son this weekend, including insight into Omar Mateen's latent homophobia.

"[He] saw two men kissing each other in front of his wife and kid, and he got very angry," Seddique Mir Mateen told NBC News, describing a trip his son took to Miami. "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 Mir Mateen also added that Sunday's shooting "had nothing to do with religion," corroborating accounts from Omar's ex-wife, Sitora Yusifiy, who told the Washington Post her former husband was not devoutly religious but would "beat" her regularly and was "not a stable person."

Yet in the days since Sunday's massacre at Pulse nightclub — the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history — Seddique Mir Mateen has come into the spotlight on his own terms. 

According to CBS News, he recorded a video on Facebook early Monday in which he expressed sadness over his son's actions. 

He added that gay people would face God's wrath, but that humans should have nothing to do with executing it.

"God will punish those involved in homosexuality," he said according to CBS News, though none of the videos on his Facebook page are in English. "[It's] not an issue that humans should deal with."

The CBS News report includes more — at times bizarre — details about Seddique Mir Mateen, who hosts a TV program on a California-based satellite station, watched primarily by "ethnic Pashtun Afghans living in the U.S. and Europe." The program is laced with anti-Pakistani rhetoric and expresses pro-Taliban sentiment, according to the report.

"The Taliban Islamic extremist movement is comprised almost entirely of Pashtuns, and Mateen's show takes a decidedly Pashtun nationalistic, pro-Taliban slant; full of anti-U.S. rhetoric and inflammatory language aimed at non-Pashtuns and at Pakistan," a senior Afghan intelligence source reportedly told CBS.

In the videos Seddiuque Mir Mateen has posted on Facebook — of which there are several — he often appears wearing military fatigues and sitting in front of Afghanistan's flag. He has declared himself the leader of a "transitional revolutionary government" in Afghanistan and claims to run his own intelligence agency, which he says he will use to take control of the country, according to CBS News.

"He thinks he runs a government in exile and will soon take the power in Kabul in a revolution," CBS News' Ahmad Mukhtar said. He added that Seddique Mir Mateen might be delusional.

According to the New York Times, five of the 15 deadliest recorded mass shootings in world history have now occurred on U.S. soil.