Noor Zahi Salman, pictured with Orlando shooter Omar Mateen and their son, reportedly tried to talk her husband out of the mass shooting. Picture: Facebook

Now, investigators are trying to figure out what led to Mateen’s murderous rampage in a gay dance club where patrons say they knew him as just another regular who danced and sometimes tried to pick up men.

A number of possible explanations and motives for the bloodbath have emerged, with the Muslim Mateen professing allegiance to the Islamic State during the attack, his ex-wife saying he was mentally ill and his father suggesting he was driven by hatred of gays.

The investigation into an attack that left Mateen and 49 victims dead includes a look at his current spouse.

Some psychologists raised the possibility that Mateen was sexually conflicted and that those feelings might have contributed to his lashing out against gays.

“People who are struggling to come to terms with their sexual identity do at times react to that by doing the exact opposite, which could be to become more masculine or more vocal about their ideals of a traditional family,” said Michael Newcomb, a Northwestern University psychologist.

Oralndo’s Pulse nightclub, site of America’s worst-ever mass shooting. Picture: Red Huber/Orlando Sentinel via APSource:AP

Authorities are also looking at two trips Mateen took to Saudi Arabia for any potential links to terrorist activity.

Saudi Arabia’s interior ministry confirmed Mateen had twice travelled to the kingdom to perform the umrah Islamic pilgrimage, in 2011 and 2012.

Unlike the hajj pilgrimage, which must be taken on particular days during the last month of the Islamic calendar, the umrah can be taken at any time during the year.

FBI chief James Comey said there was no indication of a plot directed from outside the United States, and he was confident the gunman had been “radicalised” while consuming online propaganda.

But Ryan Mauro, a terrorist expert with the Clarion Project, told Fox News that the Saudi trips could have been “just a pit stop to a different country like Yemen”.

“Based on (Mateen’s) blatant extremism and ties to a convicted Orlando imam known for facilitating international jihadists travelling, the strong likelihood is that these trips were not benign,” Mauro said.

FBI Director James Comey contends Mateen had been not likely radicalised online. Picture: AFP / Yuri GripasSource:AFP

Fox News also quoted Muslim community leaders who said it was unusual for a young man to make umrah pilgrimages in consecutive years.

But other experts believe Mateen had no direct connections to any organised terrorist group, and ISIS’s claiming of him soon after the Orlando massacre is a sign of an increasingly desperate and degraded organisation.

It took just a few hours for the Islamic State group’s opportunistic propaganda machine to take responsibility for the attack on a gay nightclub in Florida during Ramadan — and the stabbing of two police officials in France two days later — but Mateen’s messy life shows the hazards for an extremist group that hinges its credibility on its faith.

Pulse customers have described him as a regular at the gay nightclub, someone who drank heavily and could be disruptive when intoxicated. Islamic State has reserved one of its most gruesome methods of killing for suspected gays — throwing them to their death from rooftops. Alcohol is banned in the group’s territory, and anyone caught with it gets whipped, lashed or fined.

“ISIS is under pressure, hence more willing to take the risk of being proven wrong,” said Michael Horowitz, a senior analyst with the Levantine Group, using an alternative acronym for the group. “By blindly claiming Mateen ... ISIS loses control over the narrative, a control that has been a top priority for the group thus far.”

GUN SALES SOAR SINCE ORLANDO MASSACRE

Sales of semiautomatic weapons have soared days after the Orlando nightclub massacre, with a gun shop in the US state of Georgia reporting a boom in sales of AR-15s.

Within three hours on Monday, 35 AR-15s were sold, around 10 guns an hour, Atlanta news site Pix 11 reported. The store usually sells just two per day.

Jay Wallace, the owner of Adventure Outdoors in Smyrna, Georgia, said he was seeing two types of customers buying the AR-15s.

“There’s one that’s buying them for an investment and the other one is the person that’s buying them because they’re afraid they won’t be available; they’re afraid the government is going to take them away,” Wallace said.

The NRA has said toughening gun laws would do nothing to deter future terror attacks.

“Radical Islamic terrorists are not deterred by gun control laws,” wrote Chris Cox, executive director of the National Rifle Association Institute for Legislative Action, the NRA’s lobbying arm, in an op-ed article.

“It’s time for us to admit that radical Islam is a hate crime waiting to happen,” wrote Cox, whose organisation has endorsed Donald Trump in the White House race, in USA Today.

Glorymar Valley mourns the loss of her friend Javier Jorge-Reyes at a memorial to the victims of the Pulse nightclub massacre.Source:AP

The NRA lobbyist hit back at both Obama and Democratic White House hopeful Hillary Clinton after she renewed her call for tougher gun controls including a ban on assault weapons.

“They are desperate to create the illusion that they’re doing something to protect us because their policies can’t and won’t keep us safe,” Cox said.

But the carnage also shows the scale of their challenge in a country where Mateen, a 29-year-old once flagged on an FBI watchlist, was able to commit mass murder with a legally-bought assault rifle.

FBI agents outside the nightclub where Omar Mateen opened fire and killed at least 49 people.Source:AFP

MATEEN’S WIFE MAY FACE CHARGES

Earlier, it emerged that Mateen’s wife reportedly tried to talk him out of the Orlando attack, but admits she drove him to Pulse nightclub and Disney World as he scouted out potential targets.

NBC reports that authorities are now weighing criminal charges against Noor Salman after she told the FBI she drove Mateen to Pulse and other sites, including Disney World, “to scope them out”.

She also admitted she was with Mateen when he bought his ammunition and holster, but she never contacted authorities.

Omar Mateen declared his allegiance to the Islamic State terrorist group in a 911 call. Picture: MySpace.Source:Supplied

EX-WIFE ALLEGES ABUSE

Meanwhile, Mateen’s former wife Sitora Yusufiy has spoken out about their brief but violent marriage.

Ms Yusufiy met Mateen online and they wed after a brief romance, her dad told the New York Post.

“They were only together three or four months,” said her father, a Muslim immigrant from Uzbekistan who wouldn’t give his name.

“She moved down to Fort Pierce, Florida, but within three or four months she called us to get away from him,” he said.

“She was suffering physical and mental abuse from him. The cops were called on him.”

Mourners visit the makeshift memorial for the victims of the Pulse Nightclub shooting in Orlando.Source:AFP

Florida records show that the couple’s marriage license was filed on April 16, 2009. He obtained a divorce judgment against her that was filed on July 27, 2011.

Ms Yusufiy told The Washington Post that Mateen “was not a stable person” and that she feared for her safety.

“He beat me. He would just come home and start beating me up because the laundry wasn’t finished or something like that,” she said.

She told the newspaper Mateen wasn’t very religious and worked out at the gym often.

“He seemed like a normal human being,” she said.

She said in the few months they were married he gave no signs of having fallen under the sway of radical Islam.

Ms Yusufiy’s father said he never liked Mateen and was opposed to his daughter’s relationship with him because they had met online. He said his daughter was currently living in Colorado, and was happily engaged to another man.

Sitora Yusufiy met Omar Mateen online. Picture: FacebookSource:Facebook

DANGER SIGNS

A disturbing picture is emerging of Mateen’s personal history. He was said to be quiet and had few friends and had been interviewed by US authorities in recent years for suspected sympathies with Muslim extremists.

He came to the attention of federal authorities twice prior to being identified as the gunman in the Orlando nightclub mass shooting, said Ronald Hopper, an assistant agent in charge of the FBI’s Tampa Division.

“The FBI first became aware of him in 2013 when he made inflammatory comments to co-workers alleging possible terrorist ties,” but could not find any incriminating evidence, Mr Hopper said.

In 2014, the bureau investigated him again, for possible ties to Moner Mohammad Abusalha, an American who grew up in Florida but went to Syria to fight for an extremist group and detonated a suicide bomb. Mr Hopper said the bureau concluded that the contact between the two men was minimal, and that Mateen “did not constitute a substantive threat at that time”.

Omar Mateen had few friends.Source:Supplied

A friend of Omar Mateen said he did not appear to be anti-gay. Picture: MySpaceSource:Supplied

Mateen was born to Afghan parents in New York in 1986 and was living in Port St Lucie, Florida, police said.

Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, told CNN that Mateen “made a pledge of allegiance to ISIS”.

Mr Schiff said the timing and target of the attack can’t be a coincidence.

“The fact that this shooting took place during Ramadan and that ISIS leadership in Raqqa has been urging attacks during this time, that the target was an LGBT nightclub during (LGBT) Pride (month) and, if accurate, that according to local law enforcement the shooter declared his allegiance to ISIS, indicates an ISIS-inspired act of terrorism,” Mr Schiff said.

Mateen’s father, Mir Seddique, told NBC “this has nothing to do with religion”.

Mr Seddique said his son became angry when he saw two men kissing in Miami a few months ago. He believes that incident may be related to Sunday’s shooting.

“We are saying, we are apologising for the whole incident. We weren’t aware of any action he is taking. We are in shock like the whole country.”

Mr Seddique also told NBC that Mateen worked a security job at Indian River State College, which he also attended.

RISING TOLL

Dr Michael Cheatham, of Orlando Regional Medical Centre, predicted that the death toll would rise from the 49 people already dead, noting that six patients remained in intensive care. He said of the 44 patients brought in, 27 are still in hospital.

His colleague, trauma medical director Dr Joseph Ibrahim, said the hospital looked like a “war scene.”

“It was like a war scene. There were trauma patients in every corner,” he said. “Patients had wounds to their extremities, abdomen, their pelvis as if they were shot from below.”

Orlando victim Angel Colon who was shot three times before the gunman returned to ensure he was dead recounted how he managed to survive the ordeal.

Angel Colon, a survivor of the Pulse nightclub mass shooting, described the scene as “a war zone”.Source:AFP

Colon, 26, spoke in Spanish and English alongside doctors at the press conference.

He thanked hospital staff, saying “I love you guys.”

Asked his thoughts on the shooter Omar Mateen, Colon said, “This person had to be heartless. ... This person is just enjoying doing this.”

US President Barack Obama slammed Donald Trump for his hard line view on Muslims and immigration since the Orlando attack, reminding people that Mateen was born in Queens, New York, the same place as Trump.

“Where does this stop?” Mr Obama asked in an emotional appeal. “Are we going to start treating all Muslim Americans differently? Place them under special surveillance? Discriminate against them because of their faith? Do Republican officials actually agree with this? Because that’s not the America we want. It doesn’t reflect our ideals.”