IS claims Texas shooting, first attack on US soil
"Two of the soldiers of the caliphate executed an attack on an art exhibit in Garland, Texas, and this exhibit was portraying negative pictures of the Prophet Mohammed," the jihadist group said.
"We tell America that what is coming will be even bigger and more bitter, and that you will see the soldiers of the Islamic State do terrible things," the group announced.
It marked the first time the extremist group, which has captured swathes of territory in Syria and Iraq, claimed to have carried out an attack in the US.
Police said two men drove up to the conference centre Sunday in Garland, where the right-wing American Freedom Defense Initiative was organising the controversial cartoon contest, and began shooting at a security guard, who was wounded in the ankle.
Garland police officers then shot and killed both men.
According to US media reports, the two suspected jihadists were Elton Simpson, 31, and Nadir Soofi, 34, who shared an apartment in Phoenix, Arizona.
Simpson was being investigated by the FBI over alleged plans to travel to Somalia to wage holy war, court records show.
Many Muslims find drawings of the prophet to be disrespectful or outright blasphemous, and such cartoons have been cited by Islamists as motivation in previous attacks.
According to court records seen by AFP, Simpson was sentenced to three years' probation in 2011 after FBI agents presented a court with taped conversations between him and an informant discussing travelling to Somalia to join "their brothers" in war.
AFP