Ramadan Shooting Spree: Muslim Kills 50+ at Orlando Gay Club

A massacre at an Orlando gay nightclub early Sunday morning has been described as a "domestic terror incident" with 50 dead and 53 injured, hospitalized individuals, officials said, making it the worst mass shooting in U.S. history and the deadliest terror attack on U.S. soil since the events of Sept. 11, 2001.

The shooter has been identified by officials as Omar Mateen of St. Lucie County, Florida, an American-born citizen with Afghani parents.

FBI assistant agent in charge of the agency's Tampa division, Ron Hopper, was asked at a news conference on Sunday at 7 a.m. if the shooter, who was shot and killed by police, had ties to Jihadist terror groups.

At a second press conference, officials announced that the death toll of the attack had risen to 50 dead, more than doubling what had been reported earlier this morning.

"At this time we're looking at all angles right now," the official said. "We do have suggestions that that individual may have leanings towards that, that particular ideology. But right now we can’t say definitively, so we’re still running everything around.”

The FBI also said Mateen "was organized and well-prepared," adding "he is not from this area."

Mateen's parents were born in Afghanistan, and he was "on the radar" of U.S. officials for some time, but was not the target of a specific investigation, law enforcement officials told ABC News.

A police officer working at the club responded to shots fired at 2:02 a.m., and the officer then exchanged fire with Mateen, officials said at the news conference.

It then turned into "a hostage situation," when the gunman went inside the club and took hostages. The gunman had an assault rifle, handgun and "some kind of device on him," officials said. At approximately 5 a.m., the SWAT team made the decision to rescue the hostages, officials said. The shooter was killed in a gunfight with those officers.