In the spirit of TV's CSI: Cyber, House Homeland Security Committee Chair Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX) implies that the Garland Texas blasphemy shooting attack was activated by Daesh over Twitter rather than simply announced by the shooters one hour before the attack and claimed by Daesh after it. ZOMG stochastic sleeper cells!
In the May 3 "Draw Muhammad" attack in Garland, Texas, there were some loose ends that got cleared up Monday by local police chief Mitch Bates. Elton Simpson and Nadir Soofi from Phoenix were killed by Garland police officers after the two men drove from Arizona and opened fire at the event featuring cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad.
As NPR reported the next day, the FBI sent Garland police a bulletin about Elton Simpson in the hours just before that attack. But Garland police repeatedly insisted they never got any warning from federal law enforcement about an impending attack. So who's right, the FBI or the Garland Police?
Turns out both are. The FBI learned that Elton Simpson might show up in Garland and that he had become interested in the Muhammad cartoon awards affair. But when the Bureau sent the warning it didn't specifically say that. It simply warned the police about Elton Simpson by providing his name, picture, associates and the license plate number of his car. But no notice that he might be headed that way or planning an attack on the draw-Muhammad gathering.
Tweets between Hussain and one of the gunmen have lent credence to ISIS' claim that it was responsible for the attack, though outside of Hussain's involvement with the terror outfit, it's difficult to say exactly what role ISIS played. What's known of Hussain is pieced together from court records, police documents, online and social media activity, terrorism experts and a fellow hacker.
Former FBI agent Tim Clemente concludes that the gunmen may have plotted the attack without direction from ISIS at all.
"They may not have had formal contact," Clemente said. "They may have had email communication or read communications from ISIS, but I don't think they were directed by ISIS."
"I think it's the other way around -- they were kind of applying for membership into ISIS. And so they were doing this act, sent out the tweet in advance because if they know there's a possibility they're not going to make it out of this, then they can't give recognition to what they were trying to do after the fact."