Obama terms Orlando shooting ‘home-grown extremism’

Washington, June 13 (IANS) US President Barack Obama on Monday called the Florida shooting that claimed 50 lives, including that of the shooter, as "home-grown extremism" that the US authorities had been worrying about.

"As far as we can tell right now, this is certainly an example of the kind of homegrown extremism that all of us have been so concerned about for a very long time," said Obama at the White House, Xinhua news agency reported.

According to Obama, so far there was no "clear evidence" that the gunman in Sunday's massacre at a popular gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida had been directed externally.

"It does appear that at the last minute, he announced allegiance to IS," said Obama, referring to an acronym of the extremist group the Islamic State based in Syria and Iraq. "But there's no evidence so far that he was, in fact, directed by IS."