Investigators continue to comb through Twitter and othe social media as well as the electronic devices of the two men, 31-year-old Elton Simpson and 34-year-old Nadir Soofi, who attacked the Curtis Culwell Center on Sunday in an effort to ascertain what, if any, connections the two men and the Islamic State had.

Simpson used his Twitter account to tweet “The bro with me and myself have given bay’ah to Amirul Mumineen. May Allah accept us as mujahideen. Make dua…” just prior to going to the center and carrying out his attack.

Simpson’s Twitter account was following at least 400 users who are known to be pro ISIS supporters as well as IS fighters. His account, in return, was followed by many of those accounts. One such user that he kept close contact with was “Mujahid Miski,” who is believed to be Mohamed Abdullahi Hassan, a jihadist and IS-supporter from Minnesota thought to be in Somalia. They two spoke quite frequently online but it is not known if the two ever conversed off-line.

Simpson also used techniques to avoid account shut-downs, including changing account names and keeping back-up accounts at the ready. In the past month, Simpson changed his handle and account name no less than three times.

The Islamic State, in its first ever claim of an attack on American soil, this week said, “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.”

Despite the  claims by ISIS, and Twitter evidence, White House Press Secretary Josh Ernest said in a press conference yesterday, that the incident “is still under investigation by the FBI and other members of the intelligence community to determine any ties or affiliations that these two individuals may have had with ISIL or other terrorist organizations around the world.  So it’s too early to say at this point.”

The two gunman carried out their attack in opposition to a Muhammad cartoon contest at the center that offered $10,000 to the winner. The event organizer was the American Freedom Defense Initiative headed by Pamela Geller. Geller also heads the group “Stop Islamization of America.” That group is listed as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Geller posted on her website right after the shooting saying, “This is war…The war is here”

  attack, cartoon, connections, elton simpson, is, isis, pamela geller, soofi, twitter