IS CLAIMS TEXAS PROPHET CARTOON ATTACK, FIRST IN US

Yet-to-be verifeid Islamic State claim marks its first strike on US soil

The Islamic State ( IS) extremist group claimed responsibility for the Texas attack as authorities disclosed that one of the two gunmen involved had indeed been a subject of a terror investigation.

They both died, taken down by a traffic police officer as soon as they opened fire outside a Dallas suburb venue hosting a contest of cartoons of Prophet Mohammad Sunday evening.

They were identified as Elton Simpson, 30, and Nadir Hamid Soofi, 34, who went to school in Pakistan. They lived in the same complex in Phoenix, Arizona.

The IS said on its official radio station Al Bayan that “two soldiers of the caliphate” carried out the attack and and warned of more such attacks in the future.

“We tell... America that what is coming will be more grievous and bitter and you will see from the soldiers of the Caliphate what will harm you, God willing,” it said.

US officials said while the claim was being examined. This was the first time IS had claimed responsibility for an attack in the United States. But it was not clear if the group was merely taking credit for an IS-inspired attack.

The group has been calling followers around the world to carry out attacks where they are, which is believed to have inspired two lone-wolf attacks in Canada last October.

Simpson had begun posting comments and remarks about the IS on social media several months ago, which brought him under investigation of the FBI and local Phoenix authorities.

But they had not idea he was planning the Sunday attack, law enforcement officials have said. And he was not entirely unknown to them though, for terrorist-related activities.

Simpson was convicted of lying in 2011 after he denied to the FBI he had planned to travel to Somalia, as charged by prosecutors, for carrying out “violent jihad”.

Soofi, on the other hand, was an unknown quantity, law enforcement officials have said. He went to a school in Islamabad and later ran a pizza restaurant.

On Sunday, the two drove up to the heavily guarded cartoon contest venue, step out wearing body armor and opened fire on police officers standing guard outside.