Orlando Jihadi’s Father Is a Taliban Supporter with His Own Youtube Show

Seddique Mir Mateen, the father of Orlando mass murderer Omar Mateen, is a supporter of the Afghan Taliban with his own Youtube program, where he made radical anti-LGBT statements and proclaimed to run a campaign for president of Afghanistan from his Florida home.

Below, the bizarre and often disjointed collection of facts publicly known about the elder Mateen, who has come out to condemn his son’s actions to mainstream media while continuing to post cryptic messages online.

• Seddique Mir Mateen is an ideological supporter of the Afghan Taliban. He has posted a number of videos on his Youtube and Facebook pages praising the Taliban in Afghanistan. These videos appear in a Youtube page titled “Durand Jirga,” the name of his private corporation.
• “Durand Jirga INC” is classified as a non-profit company out of Port St Lucie, Florida. It appears to have board members scattered nationwide, though there is no official website or indication of what the corporation does, other than post Mateen’s bizarre videos on Youtube.
• Seddique Mateen currently hosts a program on a California-based satellite Afghan TV station. The show focus’ on the Afghan diaspora in the in the U.S. The name of the show is “Durand Jirga Show”, which is the same name as his company.
• Two months ago, a business under his name called “The Provisional Government of Afghanistan” received a business license from the state of Florida.
• Saddique has published a video in which he appears to claim that he is currently running for President of Afghanistan from Florida. In a video posted shortly before his son went on his terror rampage, the elder Mateen posted a video to his Facebook page where he appears in a military uniform and begins to give orders as if he was the President of Afganistan. “I order national army, national police and intelligence department to immediately imprison Karzai, Ashraf Ghani, Zalmay Khalilzad, Atmar, and Sayyaf,” he said, mentioning the current and former presidents of Afghanistan and other high-ranking officials. “They are against our countrymen, and against our homeland.”
• On Monday morning, a video of Mateen appeared on social media where he declared, “God will punish those involved in homosexuality.” He added as a caveat that homosexuality was “not an issue that humans should deal with,” but one that supernatural powers should punish.
• Following the attack, in interviews with various news agencies, the elder Mateen insisted his son’s actions had nothing to do with religion. He maintained that he had no idea why his son would do this, other than mentioning an anecdote in which he recalled his son becoming angry after seeing a gay couple kissing in public. He highlighted that they both attend Mosque on Friday and everything seemed normal.