Omar Mateen. Photo: Undated Selfie of Omar Mateen/Myspace

“You have to tell America to stop bombing Syria and Iraq,” Pulse nightclub shooter Omar Mateen instructs a police negotiator, in newly released 911 transcripts. “They are killing a lot of innocent people. What am I to do here when my people are getting killed over there. You get what I’m saying?”

Mateen makes this demand more than once in multiple calls. The gunman who killed 49 people at a gay nightclub in Orlando pledges allegiance to the Islamic State, also more than once, though the transcript omits part of his declaration:

Mateen identifies himself to police on the calls, which start about a half-hour after he stormed the nightclub. “I want to let you know I’m in Orlando,” he states, “and I did the shooting.” There are three calls, the first lasting only a few minutes. The last call ends around 3:25 a.m. In the conversations, Mateen asks to be called “Mujahideen” and “Islamic soldier.” The shooter claims that he has explosives, a threat that turned out to be false. He says he is wearing a vest like “what they used in France,” then he recants, saying it’s a vest “to go out to a wedding.” He mentions the Boston Marathon bomber: “My homeboy Tamerlan Tsarnaev did his thing on the Boston Marathon, my homeboy [unidentified name] did his thing, okay, so now it’s my turn, okay?”

Audio has not been released, but these transcripts, made public this past Friday, offer the clearest details of Mateen’s stated motivation to commit mass murder. The FBI released partial transcripts soon after the massacre, which included bits and pieces of the conversations between Mateen and authorities that pointed to his radicalization. But these fuller transcripts hint at just how deep his infatuation with ISIS may have been, even for a “homegrown” terrorist.

Rukmini Callimachi, who covers ISIS and Al Qaeda for the New York Times, took a closer look at the transcripts, and pointed out a few statements that struck her as unusual — and unusually specific — on Twitter:

1. Morning all, I wanted to share with you today a pretty incredible 911 transcript that was recently made public: https://t.co/KhPzqrrxcD — Rukmini Callimachi (@rcallimachi) September 26, 2016

2. This is the transcript of Omar Mateen's calls to a police negotiator during hrs he was hunkered down in the Pulse nightclub in Orlando — Rukmini Callimachi (@rcallimachi) September 26, 2016

3. This transcript was declassified and made public on a *Friday* night. I didn't even notice it had been released till yesterday — Rukmini Callimachi (@rcallimachi) September 26, 2016

4. Here is the most interesting part of the transcript, as first flagged by @SeamusHughes: pic.twitter.com/DXk7sK9iGA — Rukmini Callimachi (@rcallimachi) September 26, 2016

5. Mateen tells the negotiator that his attack was "triggered" by the death of Abu Wahid (actually spelled Abu Waheeb) pic.twitter.com/TzCwwDu2k6 — Rukmini Callimachi (@rcallimachi) September 26, 2016

6. "That's what triggered it, ok?" Mateen says. "They should not have bombed and killed Abu Waheeb" pic.twitter.com/2dp0Okw5pJ — Rukmini Callimachi (@rcallimachi) September 26, 2016

7. Perhaps realizing operator has no idea who Abu Waheeb is, he then gets irate: "Do your fucking homework & find out who Abu Waheeb is, ok? pic.twitter.com/b4ckQ8hgbt — Rukmini Callimachi (@rcallimachi) September 26, 2016

8. So who is Abu Waheeb? That's exactly the point. Waheeb is an obscure figure in ISIS, one of the original members of al-Qaeda in Iraq — Rukmini Callimachi (@rcallimachi) September 26, 2016

8. He is obscure enough that I had to look him up yesterday, and I cover this day in/day out. Waheeb is killed in an airstrike on May 6. — Rukmini Callimachi (@rcallimachi) September 26, 2016

9. Meaning Waheeb is killed around 1 month before Mateen's killing spree. For an entire month, Mateen kept this guy's name in his brain — Rukmini Callimachi (@rcallimachi) September 26, 2016

10. ISIS-inspired attackers usually go for the Great Hits. They name Awlaki, Adnani, Jihadi John, Baghdadi. But Abu Waheeb? Seriously? — Rukmini Callimachi (@rcallimachi) September 26, 2016

11. At a minimum transcript shows Mateen was deep in the fanboy-ism. He's referring to death of an obscure cmdr, one not well known in West — Rukmini Callimachi (@rcallimachi) September 26, 2016

12. The 2nd thing that's interesting about transcript is the number of times Mateen echoes ISIS' talking points regarding ending airstrikes — Rukmini Callimachi (@rcallimachi) September 26, 2016

13. By my count, he tells the operator that the US needs to end airstrikes against ISIS at least *five* times during the call. One ex below: pic.twitter.com/bP8lQOoQyO — Rukmini Callimachi (@rcallimachi) September 26, 2016

14. And also transcript shows that he pledged allegiance to ISIS at least THREE TIMES during one call, and we don't have full transcript: pic.twitter.com/tRnQEJmfH8 — Rukmini Callimachi (@rcallimachi) September 26, 2016

15. The wording of statements on ending airstrikes mimics what we read in Dabiq & in every ISIS execution video, starting with James Foley's — Rukmini Callimachi (@rcallimachi) September 26, 2016

16. Still missing from transcript: Exact words he used to pledge allegiance to ISIS ("unintelligible") Would be nice if they provided audio — Rukmini Callimachi (@rcallimachi) September 26, 2016

17. Guessing he's either saying "Emir al-Mumineem" (honorific for Baghdadi, as well as Mullah Omar etc) or else Baghdadi's long winded name — Rukmini Callimachi (@rcallimachi) September 26, 2016

18. Here is a screengrab of the unintelligible material: pic.twitter.com/qphG0uwY5H — Rukmini Callimachi (@rcallimachi) September 26, 2016

Waheeb featured prominently in ISIS propaganda and execution videos, often going unmasked. He was, based on reports, a sadistic, ruthless guy, but his death wasn’t widely covered, though the Pentagon did put out a press release. But Callimachi says, these omissions – and the strange timing of the transcripts’ release – raise a more critical question:

19. The timing of this release, combined with past omissions, leads me to ask whether officials are stage-managing ISIS-linked attacks? — Rukmini Callimachi (@rcallimachi) September 26, 2016

20. Here are three data points: (1) The partial transcript that was released after much pressure from the press omitted reference to ISIS — Rukmini Callimachi (@rcallimachi) September 26, 2016

21. Let's recall transcript inc chopped up sentences like: "I pledge allegiance to [omitted] may God protect him ... on behalf of [omitted]" — Rukmini Callimachi (@rcallimachi) September 26, 2016

22. When reporters pushed back, DOJ released a new transcript, explaining they'd omitted reference to IS on purpose: https://t.co/Puvr10t2vd — Rukmini Callimachi (@rcallimachi) September 26, 2016

Callimachi then mentions Ahmad Rahami, the Chelsea bomber, who was captured with a journal riddled with mentions of radical leaders: “Brother Osama bin Laden;” the Fort Hood shooter; and Anwar al-Awlaki, the Al Qaeda cleric killed by a U.S. drone strike in 2011. But there’s no mention of ISIS, or ISIS-affiliated terrorists in the federal prosecutors’ criminal complaint. But a picture of Rahami’s blood-soaked journal indicates otherwise:

23 After Ahmad Rahami's failed bomb plot, a complaint was filed in court last wk, which redacted mention of IS leader Abu Muhammad al-Adnani — Rukmini Callimachi (@rcallimachi) September 26, 2016

24. Here is the complaint. Crucially it mentions Rahami's reference to al-Qaeda leader Anwar Awlaki. But mysteriously Adnani is deleted: pic.twitter.com/wSecrqE41m — Rukmini Callimachi (@rcallimachi) September 26, 2016

25. Yet, as you can see below, the reference to IS leader Adnani ("Brother Adnani") is right next to mention of Awlaki in Rahami's journal: pic.twitter.com/yDKQVS8fLO — Rukmini Callimachi (@rcallimachi) September 26, 2016

26. So that's data points (1) and (2). Data point (3) is the fact that Mateen's 911 transcript is released on a FRIDAY night. A bit odd, no? — Rukmini Callimachi (@rcallimachi) September 26, 2016

27. The Iraq war taught us that intelligence is sometimes politicized. It's our job 2cut through the chatter, or in this case, the omissions — Rukmini Callimachi (@rcallimachi) September 26, 2016

Mateen’s 911 phone calls are available here. Orlando officials have also released some of the audio from 911 calls made from people trapped inside, and from those who had just escaped, the Pulse nightclub. Friends and family members also flooded emergency services on behalf of victims. As of Friday, about 200 calls had been posted to the city’s website, out of about 600 total, reports the Orlando Sentinel. They are disturbing snapshots of a massacre in real-time, people breathless, crying, and panicked on the phone. “No, no, he’s going to kill us,” one man says to a 911 operator. The rest of the phone calls have not been made public yet because officials say it’s against the law to release tapes that may depict someone being killed.