Gunmen die in shootout at anti-Muslim art contest
ONE of two men who planned to carry out an Islamic State-inspired attack on an event in Texas has been named as Elton Simpson.
Simpson, 30, an American Muslim from Phoenix in Arizona, was well known to the authorities.
Simpson allegedly drove to the Curtis Culwell Centre, an arena in Garland, near Dallas, on Sunday evening.
The other unnamed suspect is thought to be his roommate.
Both were shot dead by police after they began shooting at a security guard.
At the time an event organised by the controversial American Freedom Defence Initiative was being held.
It included a $10 000 (R120 000) prize for the best cartoon of the Prophet Mohammed.
Geert Wilders, the far-Right Dutch politician and anti-Islamic campaigner who is on an al-Qaeda hit list, was among the speakers at the event.
He told a meeting run in association with the competition that he was on a mission to stop the “Islamisation” of the West.
Reviled and supported in equal measure for his anti-Islamic rhetoric, the 51-year-old firebrand has become a divisive figure in the Netherlands, which prides itself on its long but fading tradition of consensus politics and multicultural tolerance.
Wilders, the creator of the anti-Islam film Fitna (“Discord” in Arabic), told the Texas meeting that “we are here in defiance of Islam”.
“Today, too many of our Western leaders want us to shut up,” he told the gathering.
Sometimes nicknamed “Mozart” for his platinum-dyed mop of hair, Wilders describes his far-right label as “nonsense”, but has no hesitation branding the Koran a “fascist” book.
He wants to ban the Koran, halt Muslim immigration, and tax headscarves.
“My supporters say, ‘At last there is someone who dares to say what millions of people think’,” Wilders has said.
But he is facing prosecution in the Netherlands after a controversial statement last year during local government elections vowing “fewer Moroccans” in the Netherlands.
Prosecutors received more than 6 000 complaints of discrimination.