The Islamic State Group Claims Responsibility For Dallas Assault
According to the Washington Post, The Islamic State Group claimed responsibility for the assault on the Texas cartoon contest over the weekend. They claimed this was because the contest featured images of the Prophet Muhammad. However, this is still somewhat questionable since they do have a history of claiming responsibility over attacks they had no involvement in. So, it is possible that the two gunmen acted on their own.
Regardless of who orchestrated the attack, Elton Simpson and Nadir Soofi, two Americans residing in Phoenix, carried it out. People said they were amicable and quiet – to the point that they oftentimes fed stray cats outside of their apartment. Although federal authorities were scrutinizing Simpson’s social media accounts, they didn’t know that he’d planned this attack.
The Islamic State Group has urged Americans who are unable to travel to Syria and Iraq to engage in fighting there to engage in jihad in their home country. Tuesday, the group aired an audio statement on Al Bayan (their extremist radio station) wherein they called Simpson and Soofi “two soldiers of the caliphate.” Of course, they did look like “do-it-yourself” jihadists in their body armor. Authorities arrested Simpson in 2010 as the focus of another terror investigation, but despite hours of tapes, he was only charged with lying to a federal agent and given three years of probation and $600 in fines and court costs.
Simpson’s family is left “struggling to understand” how this most-recent attack happened.
