DISINFO: ISIS claiming responsibility for Moscow attack looks like a fake
SUMMARY
ISIS claimed responsibility for the terrorist attack in Moscow. But it looks like a fake, because it does not appear in any official ISIS media. Which does not rule out that they may eventually admit it even if they don’t have anything to do with the attack, simply to attract media attention. It is certain that in a nearby future the Russian special services will identify those who commissioned the attack.
RESPONSE
The claim is patently false, as this disinformation story was itself illustrated with a screen capture taken from Amaq, the official Islamic State propaganda media. As terrorism experts pointed out, this leaves no question regarding the authenticity of the statement. No longer after this disinformation story appeared, the Islamic State released multiple evidence, including a gruesome video of the Moscow attack filmed by the attackers themselves, leaving little doubt about its responsibility.
This disinformation story is part of a wider campaign by Russian officials and media -including by Vladimir Putin himself- to baselessly blame Ukraine and other actors for the attack.
The US was legally obliged to warn Moscow earlier this month of a possible attack in Russia aimed at large gatherings before issuing a public advisory to citizens in the country. As explained by ABC news.
"The United States shared those advance intelligence indications under a tenet of the U.S. intelligence community called the “duty to warn," which obliges U.S. intelligence officials to lean toward sharing knowledge of a dire threat if conditions allow. That holds whether the targets are allies, adversaries or somewhere in between".
The alert was dismissed as "provocative", "blackmail" and an "attempt to intimidate, destabilise our country" by Putin. He said: “I’ll remind you of recent, let’s say directly, provocative statements of certain official Western structures about potential terror attacks in Russia. All of this looks like obvious blackmail and an attempt to intimidate, destabilise our country”.
See similar disinformation cases claiming that Ukraine is resorting to terrorism by attacking nuclear sites in Russia, that Foreigners from terrorist organisations are fighting for Ukraine, that Kyiv uses the same methods as ISIS to recruit children and that The Kyiv regime is a global terrorist threat.