Gunman in Texas Was FBI Suspect in Jihad Inquiry
By MANNY FERNANDEZ, RICHARD PÉREZ-PEÑA and FERNANDA SANTOS

GARLAND, Tex. — One was an extrovert drawn to basketball as well as to Islam, who had been identified by the F.B.I. as a jihadist terrorism suspect and was once a regular at Friday Prayer at a mosque near his Phoenix apartment. The other was more quiet, ran a carpet cleaning business in Phoenix and often prayed at the same mosque, sometimes accompanied by his young son.

It is still not entirely clear what led the two men — Elton Simpson, 30, and Nadir Hamid Soofi, 34, who lived in the same apartment complex in Phoenix — to come to this Dallas suburb and open fire Sunday outside a gathering that showcased artwork and cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad.

The shootout — during which Mr. Simpson and Mr. Soofi, dressed in body armor, fired assault rifles at police officers — left both of them dead.

What has become clear, however, is that what took place in a suburban Texas parking lot near a Walmart has pointed up the volatile tensions between the West’s embrace of free expression and the insistence of many Muslims that depiction of the Prophet Muhammad is a sacrilege. It served as a grim reminder of the attack 16 weeks ago on the Paris offices of the Charlie Hebdo satirical newspaper.

In this case, unlike in the massacre of journalists and cartoonists in Paris in January, only the gunmen were killed. Mr. Simpson and Mr. Soofi were shot to death by a Garland traffic officer who was part of a beefed-up security presence outside the Muhammad Art Exhibit and Contest, where artists were offered a $10,000 top prize for the best caricature of the prophet.

It immediately set off a heated debate over art and activism as organizers of the art exhibit said they intended to celebrate free speech. Pamela Geller, an organizer of the event, said it was held at Curtis Culwell Center here because members had heard that a Muslim group had a conference in the same room after the attack on the Charlie Hebdo office.

She described Sunday’s event as pro-free speech, and said that Muslims had become a “special class” that Americans were no longer allowed to offend.

Muslim and religious advocates, while denouncing the violence, called the show an offensive effort to insult Muslims. “The so-called ‘Muslim Art Exhibit’ where the shooting took place is an event deserving of criticism even absent yesterday’s violence,” said Rabbi Jack Moline, executive director of the Interfaith Alliance in Washington.

The two men who opened fire seemed to embody the contradictions of radical Islam and suburban America. Mr. Soofi once owned a pizza and hot-wings restaurant called Cleopatra, and he drifted away from the mosque while trying to run it.

Mr. Simpson, an American-born convert to Islam who was adored by the young men who frequented the Islamic Community Center in northwest Phoenix, was convicted in 2011 of lying to F.B.I. agents — denying that he had made plans to travel to Somalia when in fact he had. Federal prosecutors charged that he wanted to go “for the purpose of engaging in violent jihad,” but a judge ruled that the government had not proved that part of the charge, and sentenced him to three years’ probation.

The F.B.I. and the police in Phoenix opened a new investigation into Mr. Simpson several months ago after he began posting on social media about the Islamic State, the extremist group also known as ISIS or ISIL, according to law enforcement officials. As part of that inquiry, the authorities monitored his online postings and occasionally put him under surveillance, but they had no indication that he planned to launch the attack in Garland, the officials said.

The F.B.I. had not previously investigated Mr. Soofi, they said. Police officers and federal agents raided an apartment in Phoenix early Monday that neighbors identified as Mr. Simpson’s home; public records show Mr. Soofi living in the same apartment complex, but it was not clear if they lived together.

About the time of the attack Sunday, on a Twitter account with the name “Shariah is Light” that has since been suspended, someone posted using the hashtag #texasattack. The profile picture on the account is of Anwar al-Awlaki, a militant imam killed in a 2011 American drone strike in Yemen.

Mr. Awlaki repeatedly called for violence against cartoonists who, in his view, insulted the Prophet Muhammad. The Twitter post says that the writer and the man with him have “given bay’ah,” or pledged loyalty, “to Amirul Mu’mineen,” a title meaning commander of the faithful that was used by early Muslim rulers and has been claimed by Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, leader of the Islamic State. “May Allah accept us as mujahedeen.”

The nonprofit Middle East Media Research Institute identified the account as belonging to one of the two gunmen, and said that some of his social media contacts were known supporters of the Islamic State.

Asked whether the Twitter account was Mr. Simpson’s, a senior law enforcement official briefed on the investigation said, “That’s certainly what we believe at this point.” The official, who spoke about the investigation on condition of anonymity, said there was no evidence so far that the attack had been directed or planned by a foreign terrorist group, though sorting out the communications between the attackers and militants using social media and other means would take some time.

In Washington, Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson said in a statement on Monday that law enforcement authorities continued to investigate the suspects’ motives.

“While all the facts are not in yet, last night’s attack serves as a reminder that free and protected speech, no matter how offensive to some, never justifies violence of any sort,” Mr. Johnson said.

In Phoenix, Usama Shami, president of the Islamic Community Center, a mosque three miles south of where Mr. Simpson and Mr. Soofi lived, described Mr. Simpson as well liked among the young men of the mosque.

Mr. Simpson had converted to Islam while in high school and adopted the Muslim name Ibrahim, Mr. Shami said. Mr. Simpson was focused on the basic issues about his faith, grounded in questions young converts ask about fasting and the rules of courtship and marriage, Mr. Shami said.

Mr. Simpson never engaged in radical speech at the mosque, never questioned the pacifist message sermons were built around, Mr. Shami said.

But Mr. Shami said Mr. Simpson seemed changed after his federal case. He would show up only occasionally on Fridays. “There were no flashes of anger or radicalization, just an absence of happiness,” Mr. Shami said.

In a statement, relatives of Mr. Simpson called the shooting an “act of senseless violence.”

“As a family we do not condone violence and proudly support the men and women of our law enforcement agencies,” read the statement, which was released by the Phoenix law firm Osborn Maledon. “We are sure many people in this country are curious to know if we had any idea of Elton’s plans. To that we say, without question, we did not.”

A Facebook page that appears to be Mr. Soofi’s says he graduated from the International School of Islamabad, in Pakistan, in 1998, but a first cousin of his said he was born in the United States. The page also says he attended the University of Utah.

“We’re all devastated,” the cousin, who did not want to be identified, said of Mr. Soofi’s relatives. “We just barely found out just now on CNN.”

Some years ago, Mr. Soofi sold his Phoenix pizza restaurant, which was struggling. Mr. Soofi had moved to Arizona from Texas, and he and Mr. Simpson seemed to have struck a friendship, but to Mr. Shami, it was nothing that seemed out of the ordinary.

On Sunday, the art exhibit and contest unfolded without incident for nearly two hours beginning about 5 p.m. inside the Culwell center, which is run by the Garland Independent School District. About 200 men and women were in attendance.

Weeks ago, Garland police commanders, assisted by city and school district officials, came up with a security plan shortly after the district agreed to rent the facility to the organizers, the American Freedom Defense Initiative, a New York-based group that also uses the name Stop Islamization of America.

The group paid an additional $10,000 for security at the event that included scores of uniformed officers, a bomb squad and a police SWAT team in military fatigues, the authorities said.

About 6:50 p.m., shortly before the contest was scheduled to end, Mr. Simpson and Mr. Soofi, in a dark-colored sedan, approached a police patrol car that had blocked their entrance to the event.

Inside the patrol car at the west entrance to the parking lot were a Garland traffic officer and a school district security officer, and they were exiting their vehicle as the sedan drove toward them, the authorities said.

Mr. Simpson and Mr. Soofi stopped their sedan, stepped from their vehicle and opened fire on the officers, using the back of the car as cover. In a matter of seconds, the Garland traffic officer shot and killed both gunmen with his service pistol, officials said.

Officer Joe Harn, a spokesman for the Garland Police Department, said that both suspects died in the parking lot next to the sedan. The school officer, who was unarmed, was shot in the lower leg, but was later treated and released from a hospital.

闖「先知」漫畫賽 2槍手斃命

美國一個反穆斯林團體三日在德州加蘭市舉辦以伊斯蘭教先知穆罕默德為主題的漫畫比賽，兩名槍手在場外開槍，打傷一名警衛後，遭警方擊斃。目前尚未有組織宣稱犯案，但一名「伊斯蘭國」（IS）聖戰士在推特上表示，這起槍擊案是兩名支持IS人士幹的。

這起槍擊案類似今年一月的巴黎「查理周刊」血案，都是因醜化穆罕默德的漫畫而起。

一名聯邦調查局（FBI）幹員說，槍手之一是辛普森（Elton Simpson），他之前就是恐怖活動調查對象，他在案發前疑似在推特上發文，主題標籤為「＃德州攻擊」。

他推文：「我兄弟和我本人宣誓效忠虔誠者的指揮官，願阿拉接受我們為聖戰士。」兩位槍手可能是兄弟。

FBI已派員搜索辛普森在亞利桑納州鳳凰城的公寓，當地媒體報導，另一槍手也住在同一區，不確定是否住同一間公寓。

漫畫比賽是由著名的反穆斯林部落客潘蜜拉．蓋勒主持的「美國捍衛自由計畫」（APDI）團體舉辦，此團體被民權觀察團體列為反穆斯林的仇恨團體。

漫畫比賽優勝者可獲得一萬美元（台幣卅萬元）獎金，活動邀請公開反對穆斯林的荷蘭極右派政治人物懷爾德斯發表演說，他也是伊斯蘭激進組織追殺的對象。

警方表示，大約兩百人出席活動，在晚上七點前不久，活動快結束時，兩名槍手開車到活動場地「克蒂斯．柯威爾中心」，下車後朝一名警衛開槍，加蘭市警察隨即與槍手交火，將兩人擊斃。警衛的腳踝受槍傷，就醫後已出院。

警方表示，槍戰只持續了「幾秒鐘」，第一名槍手立刻被擊斃，第二名槍手中槍後伸手去拿背包，被警方打死。

主辦單位表示，由於這項活動很可能遭到攻擊，所以加派了安全警衛。

警方懷疑槍手開的車子上可能有爆裂物，有防爆小組在現場搜查，並疏散會場和附近一家旅館及封鎖周邊道路。

懷爾德斯告訴法新社：「我發表了半小時的談話，談漫畫、伊斯蘭教和言論自由，槍擊發生時，我剛剛離開會場。這是攻擊我們所有人的自由，我希望與凱達的死亡名單無關。」

他說，他在警方保護下，安全沒問題，四日返回荷蘭，下周還會赴美演說。

追蹤激進組織網路活動的SITE情報集團指出，IS聖戰士阿爾布列塔尼推文聲稱：「我們的兩個弟兄剛剛開火，他們以為在德州就可以躲過IS士兵。」

SITE指出，阿爾布列塔尼就是英國籍的IS聖戰士胡笙。

原文參照：
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/05/us/garland-texas-shooting-muhammad-cartoons.html

2015-05-05．聯合報．A13．國際．編譯田思怡