2 gunmen shot dead at cartoon event in Texas

Garland, Texas, The Texas police shot dead two gunmen who opened fire on Sunday outside an exhibit of caricatures of the Prophet Mohammad that was organised by a group described as anti-Islamic and billed as a free-speech event.
Citing a senior FBI official, ABC News identified one of the gunmen as Elton Simpson, an Arizona man who was the target of a terror investigation. FBI agents and a bomb squad were searching Simpson’s Phoenix home, ABC said.
Phoenix’s KPHO TV reported that the second man lived in the same apartment complex as Simpson, the Autumn Ridge Apartments. He was not identified, and the second man’s apartment was searched, the station said, quoting an FBI agent.
FBI spokeswoman Katherine Chaumont in Dallas said she had no information about the suspects. An FBI evidence team was still working, she said in an email.
The shooting in a Dallas suburb was an echo of past attacks or threats in other Western countries against art depicting the Prophet Mohammad. In January, gunmen killed 12 people in the Paris offices of French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo in what it said was revenge for its cartoons.
The attack on Sunday took place in a parking lot of the Curtis Culwell Center, an indoor arena in Garland, northeast of Dallas. Geert Wilders, a polarising Dutch politician and anti-Islamic campaigner who is on an Al-Qaida hit list, was among the speakers at the event.
ABC News said officials believed Simpson sent out tweets ahead of the attack, with the last one using the hashtag #texasattack. It said, “My bro and myself have given bay’ah to Amirul Mu’mineen. May Allah accept us as mujahideen. Make dua.” “Bay’ah” means “oath of allegiance” in Arabic, and “Amirul Mu’mineen” is “commander of the faithful,” a title of caliphs and other Muslim rulers. “Dua” means “supplication.” The tweet was pulled from Twitter after the attack.
A fighter for Islamic State said in a tweet that “2 of our brothers just opened fire at the Prophet Muhammad (s.a.w.) art exhibition in Texas,” according to the SITE Intelligence Group, a US-based monitoring group. SITE identified the writer as “Abu Hussain AlBritani,” a name used by British Islamic state fighter Junaid Hussain.