An investigator talks to police officers at the Autumn Ridge apartment complex
IN PHOTO: An investigator talks to police officers at the Autumn Ridge apartment complex which had been searched by investigators in Phoenix, Arizona May 4, 2015. Texas police shot dead two gunmen who opened fire on Sunday outside an exhibit of caricatures of the Prophet Mohammad that was organized by a group described as anti-Islamic and billed as a free-speech event. Citing a senior FBI official, ABC News identified one of the gunmen as Elton Simpson, an Arizona man who was the target of a terror investigation. REUTERS/Nancy Wiechec

Texas gunman Elton Simpson who was shot dead was under pursuit of the FBI since 2006. He was one of the terror suspects accused of shootings outside a contest that displayed Prophet Muhammad’s cartoons.

He was arrested in 2010, just a day before he planned to flee to South Africa. He was prosecuted for providing false information to an FBI agent. This was in spite of over 1,500 hours of recorded conversations having taken place. Meanwhile, he received a three-year probation and 600 US dollars as fines and fees. This was after years of putting him under FBI surveillance for terror links. Simpson and another man called Nadir Soofi who was the former's roommate, had opened fire on an unarmed security officer in a Dallas suburb who was deployed outside the contest featuring the Prophet’s cartoons.

Both the gunmen were shot at by cops and SWAT officers but it is unclear on who actually killed them. Simpson had been on the FBI radar because of his self-professed links to ISIS on the social media platform. "If there is no check on the freedom of your speech, then let your hearts be open to the freedom of our actions," tweeted the propagandist. However, authorities did not have any inkling that he was indulging in a terror conspiracy, as per one federal agent. On the other hand, Soofi wasn't that known to federal law enforcement and was not under watch by the top investigating agency.

The court files portray that Simpson had been under probe owing to his connection with a man who was striving to establish a terror cell in Arizona. Simpson had told an informant in 2009 that it was "time to go to Somalia", adding: "We gonna make it to the battlefield." He later said he was planning to travel to South Africa and then on to Somalia. The court had ruled that there was not enough proof that the false statement involved international terrorism.

The writer can be contacted at ritambanati@yahoo.com

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