Garland shooting: Twitter suspends account that warned about a 'Texas attack' 15 minutes before incident at anti-Muslim event

Your support helps us to tell the story

Support Now

Find out moreClose

As your White House correspondent, I ask the tough questions and seek the answers that matter.

Your support enables me to be in the room, pressing for transparency and accountability. Without your contributions, we wouldn't have the resources to challenge those in power.

Your donation makes it possible for us to keep doing this important work, keeping you informed every step of the way to the November election

Andrew Feinberg

White House Correspondent

Twitter appears to have suspended an account that tweeted about an attack in Texas 15 minutes before shots were fired at an anti-Muslim event in the city of Garland.

Two gunmen were killed by police officers at the event which encouraged participants to submit cartoons of the Prophet Mohamed, offering a $10,000 prize for the “best”.

The suspended account had an avatar picture depicting the US-born radical Islamist cleric and senior al-Qaeda leader Anwar al-Awlaki, who was killed in a drone strike in September 2011.

Under the profile name “Shariah is Light”, the tweet read: “The bro with me and myself have given bay’ah to Amirul Mu’mineen. May Allah accept us as mujahideen [jihadists]. Make dua. #texasattack.”

The tweet was posted at 6.35pm local time in Texas – 15 minutes before Garland Police Department received its first reports of gunfire at the anti-Muslim event. In a tweet sent three hours before its last, the profile recommended people follow another account - @AbuHu55ain – which has also now been suspended.

According to Guardian Australia, previous tweets posted by the account before it was suspended appeared to support the actions of the Isis militant group in the Middle East. The reference to giving "bay'ah to Amirul Mu'mineen" literally means pledging allegiance to the "Commander of the Faithful" - a possible reference to the leader of the so-called Islamic State, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

Other tweets reportedly suggested the account belonged to a recently-converted Muslim, including comments like "I don't know Arabic" and "my fam didn't trip when I became a Muslim".

Police are yet to formally identify the two gunmen involved in the attack – in part because they have been unable to remove their bodies from the scene. Garland police spokesman Joe Harn said they lie too close to the attackers’ car, which is being carefully checked for explosives.

But a senior FBI official told ABC News one of the suspects is thought to be Elton Simpson, an Arizona man known to the federal agency from a previous terror investigation.

The unnamed official claimed the FBI believes Simpson to be the man behind the suspended Twitter account, and added that nothing is yet known about the second shooter.