A man who had previously been identified by the FBI as a jihadi terrorist suspect was one of the two gunmen killed yesterday after opening fire at an event where people were invited to present cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad, a law enforcement official said.
The men drove up to the event centre in Garland, Texas, at about 6.50pm yesterday, stepped out of their car holding assault rifles, and began shooting, wounding a security guard, said officer Joe Harn, a spokesman for the Garland police department. He said that one police officer, whom he did not name, returned fire with his pistol, killing both gunmen.
“He did a very good job and probably saved lives,” Mr Harn said at a news conference. Of the attackers, he said, “I was told they did have body armour; I don’t know the extent of what the body armour was.”
With the police and the FBI investigating, a law enforcement officialconfirmed media reports that one of the gunmen was Elton Simpson, of Phoenix.
Somalia plan
In 2010, federal prosecutors in Arizona charged Simpson with lying to an FBI agent about his plans to travel to Somalia "for the purpose of engaging in violent jihad".
A judge found him guilty of lying to the agent, but said the government had not proved that his plan involved terrorism and sentenced him to three years’ probation.
The FBI and the Phoenix police opened a new investigation into Simpson (30) several months ago after he began posting on social media about the Islamic State, according to law enforcement officials. As part of that inquiry, the authorities monitored his online postings and occasionally had him under surveillance, the officials said.
But the authorities had no indication he planned to launch yesterday’s attack, the officials said, and the FBI was not investigating Simpson’s accomplice. Officials did not give a motive for the attack, but drawings of Muhammad, considered offensive by many Muslims, have drawn violent responses in the past.
Twitter message
Shortly before the shooting, messages were posted on Twitter with the hashtag #texasattack, including one saying, “May Allah accept us as mujahideen.”
Police and FBI agents in Phoenix searched an apartment believed to be Simpson’s.
The shooting took place outside the Curtis Culwell Center, at an event organized by the American Freedom Defense Initiative, a New York-based group that also uses the name Stop Islamization of America. The event included a contest for the best caricature of the Prophet Muhammad, with a $10,000 top prize.
Geert Wilders, an anti-Islam leader in the Netherlands for the Party for Freedom, attended the event and delivered a speech. After the attack, he posted a picture of himself with what he said were Swat forces taken before the attack. – (New York Times service)