IS claims Texas shooting, first attack on US soil

The Islamic State (IS) on Tuesday claimed responsibility for its first attack on US soil, a shooting at an event in Texas showcasing cartoons mocking the Prophet Mohammed that left the gunmen dead.

"Two of the soldiers of the caliphate executed an attack on an art exhibit in Garland, Texas, and this exhibit was portraying negative pictures of the Prophet Mohammed," IS said.

"We tell America that what is coming will be even bigger and more bitter, and that you will see the soldiers of the Islamic State do terrible things," the group announced.

It marked the first time the group, which has captured swathes of territory in Syria and Iraq, claimed to have carried out an attack in the US.

US police said two men drove up to the conference centre on Sunday in Garland, where the right-wing American Freedom Defense Initiative was organising the controversial cartoon contest, and began shooting at a security guard, who was wounded in the ankle.

Garland police officers then shot and killed both men.

According to US media reports, the two suspected militants were Elton Simpson, 31, and Nadir Soofi, 34, who shared an apartment in Phoenix, Arizona.

Simpson was being investigated by the FBI over alleged plans to travel to Somalia, court records show.

Many Muslims find drawings of the prophet to be disrespectful or outright blasphemous, and such cartoons have been cited by Islamists as motivation in previous attacks.

According to court records seen by AFP, Simpson was sentenced to three years' probation in 2011 after FBI agents presented a court with taped conversations between him and an informant discussing travelling to Somalia to join "their brothers".

The prosecution was unable to prove that Simpson had committed a terror-related offence, but did establish he had lied to investigators when he denied having discussed going to Somalia.

The White House said that President Barack Obama had been briefed on the investigation, which Texas police said was ongoing.

"There is no form of expression that justifies an act of violence," White House spokesman Josh Earnest said.

'Bad choice'

The American Freedom Defense Initiative, a group listed by the civil rights watchdog the Southern Poverty Law Center as an anti-Muslim hate group, had organised the event, which drew about 200 people.

At the event, attended by Dutch far-right politician Geert Wilders and AFDI co-founder Pamela Geller, supporters held an exhibition of entries to a competition to draw caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed.

AFDI had offered a $10,000 prize for the winner of the contest, which was billed as a "free speech" event.

Commentators were quick to draw parallels to the January mass shooting at the French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo in Paris that killed 12 people and wounded 11 more.

But the magazine's film critic, Jean-Baptiste Thoret, who only avoided the Charlie Hebdo attack because he had been late for work, said "there is absolutely no comparison".

"You have a, as you said, a sort of anti-Islamic movement (in Texas)... the problem of Charlie Hebdo is absolutely not the same," Thoret told Charlie Rose on PBS, according to an advance transcript released on Monday.

Gerard Biard, chief editor of the magazine, added: "We don’t organise contests. We just do our work. We comment on the news. When Mohammed jumps out of the news, we draw Mohammed.

"But if he didn’t, we didn’t. We don’t... We fight racism. And we have nothing to do with these people."

On Twitter, Abu Hussain Al-Britani, who militant monitoring group SITE identified as British IS fighter Junaid Hussain, described the gunmen as "two of our brothers".

But Simpson's father Dunston told ABC News that his son, who he said worked in a dentist's office, simply "made a bad choice".

"We are Americans and we believe in America," Dunston Simpson said. "What my son did reflects very badly on my family."

Condemnations

Muslim groups in the US condemned the incident on Monday as a horrific attack against the whole community.

"We condemn without any reservation the actions of the violent criminals who opened fire... last night," Alia Salem from the Council on American-Islamic Relations said in a statement on Monday.

Salem also mentioned that the organiser of the event - Pamela Geller - has been a "vocal hater of the Muslim community and Islam in general who has been banned from entering countries such as the UK".

Geller has been deeply criticised over social media for inciting hatred and division in the American society.