On June 12, 2016, a terrorist attack in the form of a mass shooting occurred at Pulse, a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida. Forty-nine people were murdered and fifty-three others were wounded inside the nightclub by a gunman before he was killed by police after a three-hour siege. The attack is the deadliest mass shooting by a single gunman in U.S. history, the deadliest incident of violence against LGBT people in U.S. history, and the deadliest terrorist attack on U.S. soil since the 9/11 attacks.
The assailant was identified as 29-year-old Omar Mateen, an American-born U.S. citizen born to parents of Afghan background. Witnesses confirmed Mateen was a regular patron of the nightclub. During the attack, Mateen pledged allegiance to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). Investigators have yet to formally link Mateen to the ISIL group, and cautioned that the attack may have been ISIL-inspired without being ISIL-directed.