RED ALERT: ISIS Now Activating Terror Cells - Orlando Attack Is phase One! Emergency!

A gunman wielding an assault-type rifle and a handgun opened fire inside a crowded Florida gay nightclub early Sunday before dying in a gunfight with SWAT officers, police said. The attack left at least 50 people dead, making it the worst mass shooting in American history.

The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria has claimed responsibility for the shooting, CBS News reports. The terror group’s news organization, Aamaq Agency, said the attack was “carried out by an Islamic State fighter.”

Authorities were investigating it as an act of terrorism.

Law enforcement sources told CBS News the gunman has been identified as Omar Mateen, 29, a U.S. citizen from Port St. Lucie. Mateen was born to Afghan parents. CBS News reports Mateen has no apparent criminal history and that authorities are investigating whether he had ties to Islamic terrorism.

CBS News Justice and Homeland Security correspondent Jeff Pegues reports that that Mateen called 911 just prior to the attack and pledged allegiance to ISIS. According to CBS News, Mateen identified himself to the 911 operator and also mentioned the Tsarnaev brothers, who were behind the Boston Marathon bombings in 2013.

Sources said Mateen had been on law enforcement’s radar in the last five years, and that he was not under investigation at the time of the shooting.

CBS News reports that authorities are “leaning towards Islamic terrorism” as a motive. Law enforcement sources said the shooting had similarities to the terror attacks in Paris and Brussels. Authorities are also investigating whether the shooting was a hate crime.

At least 53 other people were hospitalized, most in critical condition, officials said.

“I think we will see the death toll rise,” said Dr. Mike Cheatham a trauma surgeon at Orlando Regional Medical Center.

“There’s blood everywhere,” Mayor Buddy Dyer said Sunday at a news conference, hours after the shooting.

RED ALERT: ISIS Now Activating Terror Cells – Orlando Attack Is phase One

Dyer said the shooter used an assault rifle on all those killed.

Police Chief John Mina also said the shooter had some sort of “suspicious device.” He said the suspect exchanged gunfire with an officer working at the club around 2 a.m., then went back inside and took hostages among more than 300 people inside.

Mina said Mateen had a handgun and an AR15 rifle.

CBS News reports that robots are analyzing a device strapped to the gunman’s body to determine if it is a real or fake explosive device.

Around 5 a.m., authorities sent in a SWAT team to rescue the hostages, and the suspect then died in a gunfight with those officers.

CBS2’s Magdalena Doris reported the hostage standoff lasted for three hours.

The Orange County Sheriff’s Office said it was an act of “domestic terror.”

“At this point, this is an incident, as I can see it, we can certainly classify as a domestic terror incident,” Jerry Demings of the Orange County Sheriff’s Office said.

Florida Department of Law Enforcement Special Agent in Charge Danny Banks said during a news conference that the mass shooting is being investigated as an act of terrorism. He says authorities are looking into whether this was an act of domestic or international terror, and if the shooter was a lone wolf.

FBI Special Agent in Charge Ron Hopper said there’s no further threat to Orlando or the surrounding area.

When asked if the gunman had a connection to radical Islamic terrorism, Hopper said, “we do have suggestions that individual has leanings towards that.”

Gov. Rick Scott has declared a state of emergency for Orange County and called the shooting an “act of terror.”

“To take that number of lives is clearly an act of terror,” Scott said.

President Obama called the massacre an “act of terror” and an “act of hate.”

“The shooter targeted a nightclub where people came together to be with friends to dance and to sing and to live,” Obama said. “The place where they were attacked is more than a nightclub — it is a place of solidarity and empowerment where people come together to raise awareness, to speak their minds and to advocate for their civil rights.”

Obama also touched on gun control in his statement.

“This massacre is a further reminder of how easy it is for someone to get their hands on a weapon that let’s them shoot people in a school, or in a house of worship, or  movie theater, or in a nightclub,” the president said. “And we have to decide if that’s the kind of country we want to be, and to actively do nothing is a decision as well.”

Mir Seddique, Mateen’s father, told reporters that his son had anti-gay leanings and the shooting doesn’t have anything to do with religion.

Seddique told NBC News that his son got angry when he saw two men kissing in Miami a couple of months ago and thinks that may be related to the shooting.

Seddique says: “We are saying we are apologizing for the whole incident. … We are in shock like the whole country.”

Pictures have emerged on social media of Mateen wearing NYPD apparel.

NYPD News said that “there is absolutely no affiliation at this time.”

Mina Justice was outside the club early Sunday trying to contact her 30-year-old son Eddie, who texted her when the shooting happened and asked her to call police. He told her he ran into a bathroom with other club patrons to hide. He then texted her: “He’s coming.”

“The next text said: ‘He has us, and he’s in here with us,”‘ she said. “That was the last conversation.”

Dozens of police vehicles, including a SWAT team, swarmed the area around the club. At least two police pickup trucks were seen taking what appeared to be shooting victims to the Orlando Regional Medical Center.

Jackie Smith, who was inside the club, said two friends next to her were shot.

“Some guy walked in and started shooting everybody. He had an automatic rifle, so nobody stood a chance,” Smith said. “I just tried to get out of there.”

Smith did not know the conditions of her friends and came out of the hospital and burst into tears.

Christine Leinonen drove to Orlando at 4 a.m. after learning of the shooting from a friend of her 32-year-old son, Christopher Leinonen, who was at Pulse and is missing.

She has not heard from her son and fears the worse.

“These are nonsensical killings of our children,” she said, sobbing. “They’re killing our babies!”

She said her son’s friend Brandon Wolf made it out alive by hiding in a bathroom and running out as the bullets flew.

Pulse Orlando posted on its own Facebook page around 2 a.m.: “Everyone get out of pulse and keep running.” Just before 6 a.m., the club posted an update: “As soon as we have any information we will update everyone. Please keep everyone in your prayers as we work through this tragic event. Thank you for your thoughts and love.”

Pulse describes itself as the “hottest gay bar in Orlando.” CBS affiliate WKMG-TV reported that it was “Latin Night” at the nightclub at the time of the shooting.

Police said local, state and federal agencies were investigating.

The incident follows the fatal shooting late Friday of 22-year-old singer Christina Grimmie, who was killed after her concert in Orlando by a 27-year-old Florida man who later killed himself. Grimmie was a YouTube sensation and former contestant on “The Voice.”

Jon Alamo said he was at the back of one of the club’s rooms when a man holding a weapon came into the front of the room.

“I heard 20, 40, 50 shots,” Alamo said. “The music stopped.”

Club-goer Rob Rick said it happened around, 2 a.m., just before closing time.

“Everybody was drinking their last sip,” he said.

He estimated more than 100 people were still inside when he heard shots, got on the ground and crawled toward a DJ booth. A bouncer knocked down a partition between the club area and an area in the back where only workers are allowed. People inside were able to then escape through the back of the club.

Christopher Hansen said he was in the VIP lounge when he started hearing gunshots. He continued to hear shooting even after he emerged, where police were telling people to back away from the club. He saw injured people being tended to across the street.

“I was thinking, are you kidding me? So I just dropped down. I just said please, please, please, I want to make it out,” he said. “And when I did, I saw people shot. I saw blood. You hope and pray you don’t get shot.”

The office for Mayor Bill de Blasio said that NYPD patrol and counterterrorism “resources are on alert and stand in protection of our city.”

“We mourn with the people of Orlando and the LGBT community as a whole on the news that — once again — we have lost precious lives to the gun,” the mayor’s office tweeted.

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