“We are Americans and we believe in America,” Dunston Simpson said. “What my son did reflects very badly on my family.”

Simpson’s son, Elton, was identified earlier today to ABC News by a senior FBI official as one of the suspects in Sunday’s failed attack on a Texas community center that was hosting an event displaying cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad. Elton Simpson and another man were killed by a police officer after they opened fire on the officer and a security guard, local police said.

Fatal Shooting Outside 'Draw the Prophet' Exhibit in Texas (video)

Today FBI agents and a bomb squad were at Simpson's home in an apartment complex in north Phoenix conducting searches of the apartment. Officials believe Simpson is the person who sent out several Twitter messages prior to the attack on Sunday, in the last one using the hashtag #TexasAttack about half an hour before the shooting. Prior to that, the Twitter account holder had published messages sympathetic to Islamic terror groups such as ISIS.

Dunston Simpson said his son worked at a dentist’s office but was “on vacation” for the last few weeks and that the two last spoke three weeks ago. But they “had not much to talk about, because we had some very serious differences.”

Still, the elder Simpson said that while he was a strict father, Elton was a “good kid.”

John Iannarelli, Assistant Special Agent in Charge FBI’s Phoenix office, said authorities in Texas traced both suspects to the Phoenix apartment and that the two appear to have been roommates. The second suspect has not been publicly identified.

Followers of ISIS had been sending messages about the event in Texas for more than a week, calling for attacks. One referenced January's Charlie Hebdo massacre in France and said it was time for "brothers" in the United States to do their part.

Simpson was well known to the FBI. Five years ago he was convicted for lying to federal agents about his plans to travel to Africa where investigators alleged he planned to join a terror group.

The investigation into Simpson reached back to July 2007, when he was recorded saying of fighting with Islamists, “I know we can do it, man. But you got to find the right people that… Gotta have connects.”

Despite that and other recordings, a judge ruled the government did not adequately prove Simpson was going to join a terror group and Simpson was sentenced to three years’ probation for lying to investigators.

Kristina Sitton, who represented Simpson in the 2010 trial, said her former client had been on a no-fly list and that the FBI had attempted to get Simpson to cooperate with them, even after his conviction. She saw him, she said, as "harmless." "He grew up the most normal guy. Just a normal high school guy... Converting to Islam seemed like a good thing for him. He had been going down a bad path and then he found Islam," Sitton told ABC News. "He never struck me as someone who would do this sort of thing. I'm not a bleeding heart, I'm a Republican. I've seen some pretty bad guys and he seemed pretty normal."

ABC News' James Gordon Meek, Lee Ferran, Alexander Hosenball and Cho Park contributed to this report.

WASHINGTON (AP) — In a scathing critique of the Defense Department's efforts to curb sexual assaults, a U.S. senator warned Monday that the true scope of sex-related violence in the military communities is "vastly underreported" and that victims continue to struggle for justice.

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., said in a report that the Pentagon refused to provide her with all the information she requested about sexual assaults at several major bases. The material she did receive revealed that the spouses of service members and civilian women who live or work near military facilities are especially vulnerable to being sexually assaulted. Yet they "remain in the shadows" because neither is counted in Defense Department surveys to determine the prevalence of sexual assaults, the report said.

"I don't think the military is being honest about the problem," Gillibrand said in an interview.

The senator said her analysis of 107 sexual assault cases found punishments that were too lenient and the word of the alleged assailant was more likely to be believed than the victim. Less than a quarter of the cases went to trial and just 11 resulted in conviction for a sex crime. Female civilians were the victims in more than half the cases, said Gillibrand, an outspoken advocate for an overhaul of the military justice system.

In its annual report on sexual assaults in the military released Friday, the Defense Department reported progress in staunching the epidemic of sexual assaults. It estimated that sex crimes are decreasing and more victims are choosing to report them — a sign there is more confidence offenders will be held accountable.

Laura Seal, a Defense Department spokeswoman, said the department does not have authority to include civilians in its surveys.

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Graphic shows number of assault cases investigated, tried and convicted; 1c x 3 inches; 46.5 mm x 76 …

In one of the cases Gillibrand reviewed, an airman allegedly pinned his ex-girlfriend down and then raped her. During the investigation, two other civilian victims stepped forward to accuse the same airman of sexual assault. One of them, the wife of another service member, awoke in the night to find the airman in bed with her. Two of his fingers were inside her vagina. The investigating officer recommended the airman be court-martialed. If convicted, he faced a lengthy prison term.

But the investigator's superiors decided against a trial and used administrative procedures to discharge the airman under "other than honorable conditions." The Air Force said the victims preferred this course of action. Two of them had decided they "wanted no part in the case," according to the Air Force, while the third said she did not want to testify.

To Gillibrand, the outcome was suspicious and suggested the victims may have been intimidated.

"It's frustrating because you look at the facts in these cases and you see witnesses willing to come forward, getting the medical exam and either eventually withdrawing their case or the investigators deciding that her testimony wasn't valid or believable," she said.

The report said the case files contradict the Pentagon's assertion that military commanders will be tough on service members accused of sex crimes. Gillibrand has backed legislation that would remove commanders from the process of deciding whether serious crimes, including sexual misconduct cases, go to trial. That judgment would rest with seasoned military attorneys who have prosecutorial experience. The Pentagon is opposed to the change.

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Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., is reflected in a framed U.S. flag while she is interviewed about m …

Gillibrand's request for the case files followed a February 2014 Associated Press investigation into the U.S. military's handling of sexual assault cases in Japan that revealed a pattern of random and inconsistent judgments.

To determine whether the same situation existed at major U.S. bases, Gillibrand asked then-Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel for the details of sexual assault cases investigated and adjudicated from 2009 to 2014 at the Army's Fort Hood in Texas, Naval Station Norfolk in Virginia, the Marine Corps' Camp Pendleton in California and Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio.

In December, the Pentagon provided records just for 2013, Gillibrand said, and those 107 cases were delivered only after former Sen. Carl Levin, then chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, intervened.

The refusal to provide the data, Gillibrand's report said, "calls into question the department's commitment to transparency and getting to the root of the problem."

Seal said the scope of Gillibrand's request was "extraordinary" — though the AP obtained more than 1,000 reports of sex crimes involving U.S. military personnel based in Japan between 2005 and early 2013. The senator and the department agreed to provide a subset of what she originally requested, Seal said.

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Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., is interviewed about military sexual assaults, in her Capitol Hill …

Gillibrand said she still wants the files from the other years.

The senator also questioned whether the 107 cases represented the actual total for the four bases. There were five for Wright-Patterson even though the base told AP its legal office had received nine allegations of sexual assault in 2013. There were 15 cases for 2013 at Naval Station Norfolk, the largest naval installation in the world with 43,000 service members stationed there.

In another case cited by Gillibrand, a married, 34-year-old Marine Corps staff sergeant received a reduction in rank and was docked $2,042 in pay after allegedly forcing a 17-year-old girl to have sex with him.

The Air Force investigating officer said the victim was not a credible witness because there were glaring inconsistencies in her story. Under the terms of a pretrial agreement, a sexual assault charge was withdrawn. The Marine pleaded guilty to providing alcohol to a minor, making a false statement and adultery.

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Link to Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand's report:

http://www.gillibrand.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Gillibrand_Sexual%20Assault%20Report.pdf

Should the rise of conflicts across the Middle East and Ukraine serve as a warning sign that something much more dangerous is approaching?

According to the CIA's Asymmetric Warfare Advisor, the answer is yes.

In a startling interview he reveals that all 16 U.S. Intelligence Agencies have begun to prepare for World War III.

Making matters worse, his colleagues believe it could begin within the next 6 months.

However, the ground zero location for this global conflict is what makes his interview a must-see for every American.

Take a few moments to watch it below and decide for yourself.

HONOLULU (AP) — Molten lava, rocks and gas went flying through the air on Hawaii's Kilauea volcano after an explosion was caused by the partial collapse of a crater wall.

The collapse triggered a small explosion, spreading lava and debris around the rim of Kilauea's Halemaumau Crater, the U.S. Geological Survey's Hawaiian Volcano Observatory says.

Janet Babb, a geologist with the USGS, compared the blast on Sunday to taking a hammer to the top of a bottle of champagne.

"You look at the bottle and you see the liquid, but you don't see the gas," she said. "There's a lot of gas in the lava. And so, when that rock fall hits the lava lake, it's like the moment you knock the top of the champagne bottle off and that gas is released and it hurls molten lava and rock fragments."

Rocks overhanging the lava lake are altered by gases coming from the lava, Babb said. The rocks eventually give way and collapse into the lava, causing an explosion.

The material was hurled about 280 feet skyward, she said.

Video of the event shows a wall of rocks sliding into a lava lake that last week rose to a record-high level. The slide caused an explosion that sent fist-size chunks of rock onto the closed Halemaumau visitor overlook, according to the Geological Survey. The area has been closed since 2008, when the lava lake formed, and no one was injured.

There could be fallout of ash and dust from this type of event, but it's very unlikely that anyone could be injured, Babb said. Wind direction dictates the amount of debris that lands in visitor areas, and it is relatively common, she said.

The last time molten lava was visible in the crater was in 1982, when a fissure erupted. The last time there was a lake similar to this one was in 1974.

The vent within Halemaumau Crater has been rising and falling since it first opened, but it reached a record high last week. Even at its previous highest level in October 2012, the lake was too low for people to see. During the day, people could view the gas rising from the lake, and at night people could see the orange glow from the lava.

From the early 1800s up until 1924, there was a continuous lake of lava at Kilauea summit within Halemaumau. At that time, the crater was about half the diameter of what it is now.

In 1924, there was a huge eruption inside the volcano that doubled the size of the crater.

Since 1924, lava lakes have been present at different times. In 1967 and 1968, the entire crater was filled with molten lava. You can still see a "bathtub ring" on the walls of the crater where the lava had risen to at that time.

A magnitude 3.6 earthquake was felt in the area early Monday morning, according to the Geological Survey.

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Follow Caleb Jones on Twitter: @CalebAP