War - Wickedness Increases

Police: Pulse nightclub shooter pledged allegiance to Islamic State - UPI.com
UPI reports: "Law enforcement officials said Omar Saddiqui Mateen, the suspected gunman who opened fire at an Orlando nightclub, killing 50 people, pledged allegiance to the Islamic State. Before the shooting early Sunday, Mateen, 29, of Fort Pierce, Fla., allegedly called 911 to align himself with the militant group, officials told CNN and NBC News reported."

What to Know About ISIS’s Role in the Orlando Shooting | TIME
Time reports: "ISIS claimed responsibility for the mass shooting attack in an Orlando gay club on Sunday that left at least 50 people dead. 'The attack that targeted a nightclub for homosexuals in Orlando, Florida, and that left more than 100 dead and wounded was carried out by an Islamic State fighter,' the group said in a report on its official Amaq news agency. The message was attributed to an unnamed 'source' and distributed over the Telegram messaging app on Sunday afternoon. On Monday, an ISIS-run radio station also labeled the man identified as the shooter, Omar Mateen, as 'one of the soldiers of the caliphate in America.'

Comment: I'm tagging this post under War and Wickedness Increases. I think the wickedness tag is pretty clear, we can say that all of these terrorist attacks fall under the category of increasing wickedness. I've read several BP commentators who say that terrorism is linked to the "days of Noah" prophecy (Matthew 24:37) because of how wicked the antediluvian world was, there was a lot of violence and no respect for life. Personally, I always thought their logic was a bit of a stretch given the context of the entirety of the verse, but I take the point.

Tagging this post under War makes much more sense, as the Islamic State group has claimed responsibility for the attack and praised the shooter was one of their own. Experts are saying the links are not clear. From what I've read, the links are there. He went to the same mosque as a known terrorist and he had visited Saudi Arabia and also had bragged about terrorist connections. These are links. How deep they are and what happened behind the scenes we may never know, but from what we can see only on the surface, it's enough. He may have been a lone wolf in operational terms, but he had plenty of encouragement and guidance. His intent was to act as an soldier in a jihadist war and he succeeded in doing that.