And I don't mean conflicting as in conflicting his own story, I mean these groups are in conflict with each other.
From the Washington Post: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2016/06/13/omar-mateen-may-not-have-understood-the-difference-between-isis-al-qaeda-and-hezbollah/
Speaking to reporters Monday, FBI Director James B. Comey said that during his 911 calls, Mateen said he was a supporter of the Islamic State, the extremist Sunni group also known as ISIS that controls a significant expanse of territory in Syria and Iraq. Media outlets linked to the Islamic State later claimed Mateen as their own, describing him as "one of the soldiers of the caliphate in America."
Mateen also mentioned the 2013 Boston bombing during his calls. That attack, which left three dead and more than 260 injured, was carried out by the Tsarnaev brothers. While the brothers were not found to be directly linked to a foreign group, they were partly motivated by a magazine published by al-Qaeda's affiliate in Yemen. (According to the Guardian, Mateen's admiration for the Tsarnaev brothers went back further. In 2013, Mateen is believed to have told the FBI that he knew the two bombers, though investigators later concluded that this relationship had been fabricated.)
Further confusing matters, Comey also revealed that in "inflammatory and contradictory" comments to co-workers in 2013, Mateen had claimed to be a member of Hezbollah, the Shiite militia based in Lebanon.
To be clear, these groups named by Mateen are not allies. The Islamic State and al-Qaeda both derive their theology from an extreme view of Sunni Islamism, but in practical terms the pair split in 2014, with the more established al-Qaeda publicly disavowing the actions of the more extreme Islamic State. Jabhat al-Nusra, al-Qaeda's affiliate in Syria, often fights the Islamic State in the Syrian conflict. Meanwhile, Hezbollah is a Shiite Islamist group. In Syria, it supports the government of Bashar al-Assad, effectively meaning it fights both the Islamic State and al-Qaeda.
Comey suggested Monday that Mateen may have not understood the distinctions among the groups.
More here from CTV News:
http://www.ctvnews.ca/world/orlando-shooter-pledged-loyalty-to-conflicting-groups-fbi-says-1.2946235
The Orlando gunman professed allegiance during the attack on a gay nightclub to the leader of the Islamic State militants, even as he called the Boston Marathon bombers, who had nothing to do with the extremist group, his homeboys. Before that, the FBI said, he claimed family connections to al Qaeda and boasted of ties to Hezbollah, organizations deeply at odds with the Islamic State extremists.
Those mixed allegiances suggest that to some would-be jihadists, a general ideology of violent extremism is more important than the tenets of any particular group.
"Particularly with the lone wolves, they're pretty permissive and promiscuous. They're attaching themselves to whatever happens to be hot and sexy on that day, but they don't seem to have clearly delineated thoughts on geopolitics and the jihadist movement," said Will McCants, an Islamic State expert at the Brookings Institution.
He was self-radicalized by reading extremist propaganda from groups which held a message that resonated with him. In this case, extreme homophobia. He obviously grew up in a strict and very faith-driven home (his father has released statements about the fact that his son shouldn't have killed those gay people, because God will take care of that, after all). There are lots of rumours swirling around his presence on gay dating apps and visiting the same club many times over a three-year period. So, it's possible that he hated himself deeply for feeling what he had been brought up to believe were profoundly unclean attractions, but there is not a single reason for what he did.
He arose out of a toxic and volatile stew that includes easy access to guns, two deeply homophobic cultures, strict religious upbringing, racism, and radical religious propaganda.
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