Omar Mateen, the man behind the worst mass shooting in U.S. history, seemed motivated by two things: a loathing of the LGBT community and an avowed admiration for the Islamic State militant group, which has inspired “lone wolf” attacks elsewhere in the United States and the world.

“In the Islamic State, gays are being tracked and killed all the time,” said Subhi Nahas, a 28-year-old Syrian who fled via Lebanon and found sanctuary in the United States. “At the executions, hundreds of townspeople, including children, cheered jubilantly as [if] at a wedding.”

It remains unclear what role the methods and ideology of the group, which is based in the Middle East, played in the slaughter Mateen carried out at a gay nightclub in Orlando. Investigators say he made a 911 phone call during the attack in which he said he was avenging the bombings of Muslims in the Middle East and referenced the 2013 Boston Marathon bombings.

But if there is a clear link between the attack in Orlando and the Islamic State, it would be the most high-profile incident yet in the group’s wider, relentless campaign against gays. Ever since the group came to prominence amid security vacuums in Iraq and Syria, it has set about persecuting religious minorities, women and others whose identity and lifestyle are anathema to its puritanical creed. In areas under the control of the Islamic State, its fighters have issued edicts against homosexual behavior and flashy hairstyles and promised death for anyone caught in the act of sodomy.

Image: Twitter.