MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) — A fugitive Minnesota terror suspect was back on Twitter Tuesday, spreading false information about a Texas attack to ISIS sympathizers.
WCCO reported Monday how the Minnesotan known as Mujahid Miski encouraged one of two gunmen involved in an attempted attack on a Texas event.
Elton Simpson was one of two gunmen who tried to storm into a cartoon contest Sunday night in Garland, Texas — where images of the Prophet Muhammed were drawn.
Simpson and the other gunmen were shot and killed immediately.
Two different anti-terror groups say Mujahid Miski is one of the best-known online promoters for ISIS.
He has been suspended by Twitter dozens of times, and was suspended again Monday after being linked to the Texas attacks.
He was exchanging Tweets in the hours before the Texas attack with high-profile ISIS operatives like Junaid Hussain, who last weekend also urged attacks on U.S. soil, and even tweeted the home address of a high-ranking U.S. soldier.
Miski’s tweets often have Minnesota ties. He has used an image of Troy Kastigar as his profile picture, who attended Robbinsdale Cooper High School and died fighting for Al-Shabaab in 2009.
“If you guys only knew how much fun we have over here, this is the real Disneyland,” Kastigar said.
When a top anti-terror group called The Counter Extremism Project took to Twitter demanding he be blocked, Miski tweeted a threat to behead the group’s president, Fran Townsend.
The Counter Extremism Project has pressed Twitter to act.
“One thing that we propose is for them to use [what is] technologically available to them to devise more sophisticated means to identify people like Miski and ban them permanently,” CEP Executive Director David Ibsen said.
Miski, whose real name is Mohammed Hassan, went to Roosevelt High School and left Minneapolis for Somalia in 2008. He was indicted in 2009.
He has ties to a half dozen terror cases, and court documents indicate he was involved in recruiting the latest wave of Minnesota terror suspects — including the six men arrested last month.
The FBI declined to comment on our story, and Twitter has not responded to our requests for a comment.