The FBI is investigating a website that appears to contain a manifesto by the white supremacist Dylann Roof, who is suspected of shooting dead nine black churchgoers in South Carolina.



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The provenance of the website, which contains a cache of photographs of the 21-year-old, some in which he holds firearms and others in which he stands beside the Confederate flag, has not been confirmed.

However federal agents are investigating the website, a law enforcement source has told the Guardian. The FBI is preparing a statement for public release imminently.

The website also contains what appears to be a manifesto that, if authentic, would shed light on the thoughts that led Roof to massacre black worshippers at a Bible study group at the Emanuel AME church in Charleston, South Carolina, on Wednesday.

The apparent manifesto states: “I have no choice. I am not in the position to, alone, go into the ghetto and fight.

“I chose Charleston because it is most historic city in my state, and at one time had the highest ratio of blacks to Whites in the country. We have no skinheads, no real KKK, no one doing anything but talking on the internet.

“Well someone has to have the bravery to take it to the real world, and I guess that has to be me.”

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The author also writes that they were “truly awakened” by the case of Trayvon Martin, an unarmed black teenager who was killed by George Zimmerman in Florida three years ago.

Zimmerman, a neighbourhood watch leader, was acquitted of murdering the 17-year-old teenager but the case became a touchstone for debates over racial discrimination in the US.

“It was obvious that Zimmerman was in the right,” the author of the manifesto writes on a website that Roof appears to have created, entitled Last Rhodesian. “But more importantly this prompted me to type in the words ‘black on white crime’ into Google, and I have never been the same since that day.”

The website, which is filled with offensive racist diatribe, also contains 60 photographs, 34 of which are of Roof. In one picture, he is shown burning an American flag. In four others, he is either holding or surrounded by the Confederate flag.

Data embedded in the images suggests they were mostly taken in recent months. However one, in which Roof photographs himself in a mirror, appears to have been taken at 2.45pm on Wednesday, less than six hours before he arrived at the Emanuel church.

The website appears to have been created in February, with the registrant’s name given as Dylann Roof.

Additional reporting Oliver Laughland and Shiv Malik