Omar Mateen’s father Seddique claimed his son’s religion had nothing to do with him killing 50 people at a popular gay club in Orlando. But videos show that Seddique supports the Taliban in his native Afghanistan.
Seddique hosted a show called the Durand Jirga Show on Payam-e-Afghan, “which broadcasts from California.” He then posted some videos from the show on his YouTube Channel, but has not done that for over a year. The Washington Post found that the “phone number and post office box displayed on the show were traced back to the Mateen home in Florida.”
He also posted a video of him as Afghanistan’s president on his Facebook page, Provisional Government of Afghanistan – Seddique Mateen. He posted this only hours before his son opened fire at Pulse:
“I order national army, national police and intelligence department to immediately imprison Karzai, Ashraf Ghani, Zalmay Khalilzad, Atmar, and Sayyaf. They are against our countrymen, and against our homeland,” he says, while dressed in army fatigues.
In this YouTube video, he praised the Afghan Taliban and attacked the Pakistan government. He promised that “the Durand Line issue will be solved soon.”
From The Washington Post:
The “Durand Line issue” is a historically significant one, particularly for members of the Pashtun ethnic group, whose homeland straddles the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan. The Durand Line is that border. It is not clear whether the Mateens are Pashtun. The Afghan Taliban is mostly made up of Pashtuns.The line was drawn as a demarcation of British and Afghan spheres of influence in 1893. The British controlled most of subcontinental Asia at the time, though some parts, including what is now Afghanistan and northwest Pakistan, were only loosely held. The line was inherited as a border by Pakistan after its independence. Since it splits the Pashtun population politically, it is seen as a cause for their marginalization. Pashtuns are the largest ethnic group in most of eastern Afghanistan and northern Pakistan.
The last video on his YouTube page shows him declaring his candidacy for Afghan president….a year after Afghanistan elected a new president.
The Post also notes that Seddique speaks in Dari instead of Pashto, which is “the language of Pashtuns.” This does not quite fit with Seddique’s material since he mostly talks about “issues of Pashtun nationalism.”
Dari is a form of Persian spoken in Afghanistan, recognized by the government in 1964. The government made Pashto and Dari the two official languages of the country.
After the massacre, Seddique said his son did not slaughter over 50 people because of their religion. He claimed his son “got angry” when he saw two men kissing Miami. Mateen expressed disgust with the action, especially since he had his son with him.
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