Police admit they have 'no idea' of 'psychopath' Paddock's motives

The gunman, identified as Stephen Paddock, 64, left no immediate hint of his motive for the arsenal of high-powered weaponry he amassed, including 34 guns, or the carnage he inflicted on a crowd of 22,000 attending an outdoor country music festival.

Paddock was not known to have served in the military, or to have suffered from a history of mental illness or to have registered any inkling of social disaffection, political discontent or radical views on social media.

US officials also discounted a claim of responsibility by Isis.

"We have determined to this point no connection with an international terrorist group," Aaron Rouse, special agent in charge of the Federal Bureau of Investigation field office in Las Vegas, told reporters on Monday.

Police said they believed Paddock acted alone but were at a loss to explain what might have precipitated it.

"We have no idea what his belief system was," Clark County Sheriff Joseph Lombardo told reporters. "I can't get into the mind of a psychopath."

The suspect had amassed an that included more than 40 firearms, police said on Monday night, as officials declared a state of emergency for the county encompassing the Las Vegas strip. Authorities found 23 guns, including a handgun, in the hotel room of the gunman, identified earlier by police as 64-year-old Stephen Paddock. At least some were equipped with scopes, devices that help the shooter identify targets at a range, police said.

They also recovered 19 firearms plus explosives and several thousand rounds of ammunition from Paddock's home in Mesquite, Nevada, a town near the border with Arizona, Joe Lombardo, the Las Vegas metropolitan police department Sheriff, told reporters. He also said police found "electronic devices" but would not describe them. Additionally, several pounds of ammonium nitrate, a material used to make explosives, were also found in his car. Later on Monday, a Swat team searched a residence in northern Nevada that is believed to be associated with the gunman. At an afternoon news conference, officials also updated the latest casualty figures, saying that at least 59 people were dead and 527 more injured after a gunman opened fire from the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay hotel on the thousands of concertgoers attending the Route 91 country music festival on Sunday night.

Islamic State on Monday claimed that the gunman was "a Soldier of the Islamic State", but authorities have said that there is no evidence to substantiate that claim and that the group had falsified its role in attacks.

The shooting turned an American city known for its nightclubs and casinos into a war zone as thousands of concertgoers ran for cover from the barrage of bullets pouring down on them. The attack is the latest in a grim list of mass shootings, and the carnage surpassed the death toll of the Isis-inspired massacre at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando in June 2016, when 49 people were killed. The first reports of the shooting came just after 10pm local time, as the country music star Jason Aldean, one of the festival's final performers, played. As the bullets began to spray the crowd, Aldean stopped playing and ran offstage, prompting chaos in the crowd. "They're thinking it's fireworks or it's part of the technology of the music being played. They were thinking it's coming from different areas," Carolyn Goodman, the mayor of Las Vegas, said.