Austin, Texas, May 4 (EFE).- U.S. authorities on Monday identified the two men shot dead by police as they were allegedly preparing to mount an attack on a cultural center in the Texas city of Garland, where an exhibition of cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed was being held.

Elton Simpson, 30, five years ago was arrested as he was trying to travel to Africa allegedly to join a jihadist group. He shared a house with Nadir Soofy, 34, in Phoenix, local media reported.

The identification of Soofy was confirmed to The Washington Post by police, while Simpson’s ID had been announced several hours earlier by ABC, also citing police.

Garland Police Department spokesman Joe Horn told local media that the two men were intending to enter the Curtis Culwell Center and open fire on the roughly 200 people who were visiting the exhibition on Sunday afternoon.

The two men, armed with assault rifles, opened fire on police who were guarding the site, however, whereupon the officers returned fire killing the two gunmen.

The two men died beside their vehicle, Harn said at a press conference.

FBI agents on Monday searched the home of Simpson and Soofy in Phoenix using a robot.

Bomb deactivation teams also searched the vehicle in which the two men had arrived at the cultural center but they found only assault rifle ammunition and luggage.

According to FBI officials quoted by The Washington Post, the men were not directly linked with any international terrorist group.

After the two men were shot by police, the people inside the cultural center were taken to a nearby school while police checked the vehicles parked around the building for explosives.

Local television channel WFAA, an ABC-affiliated television station, reported that the two men were “possibly” carrying explosives, citing SWAT team sources.

Another local media outlet reported that a security guard had been shot in the leg and taken to a hospital but his injuries were not life-threatening.

The center was already under strict police protection, owing to the exhibition’s controversial nature, and the organizers had also hired a special security agency for the event, according to media reports.

The exhibition and a Prophet Mohammed cartoon-drawing contest had been organized by the American Freedom Defense Initiative group against what it called “violent Islamist intimidation.”

The Draw the Prophet contest was organized in response to certain pro-Islamic activities in Dallas in January.

Drawing and publishing images of Mohammed is prohibited in India and Muslim countries.

Islamist extremist groups consider such pictures to be blasphemous and provocative and have carried out terror attacks in response.

However, Western countries defend such drawings under the right to freedom of expression. EFE