ISIS gives Las Vegas gunman jihadi name in new claim amid widespread scepticism over terror links
ISIS has doubled down on its claim of responsibility for the Las Vegas shooting, bestowing a jihadi name on the gunman amid widespread scepticism.
Investigators say they have not yet found any evidence of a link between the terrorist group and Stephen Paddock, a 64-year-old retired accountant known for gambling.
In a new official claim of responsibility, Isis claimed Paddock was responding to its leader’s call for intensified attacks against Western countries bombing its territories in Syria and Iraq.
“Responding to the call of [Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi] to target the states of the Crusader alliance, and after careful observation of gatherings of the Crusaders in the US city of Las Vegas, one of the soldiers of the caliphate (Abu Abd al-Bar al-Amriki, may Allah accept him) lay hidden armed with machine guns and various ammunition in a hotel overlooking a concert,” it said.
“He opened fire on their gathering, leaving 600 killed and injured, until his ammunition was finished and he departed as a martyr.”
Abu Abd al-Bar al-Amriki is an Arabic “kunya”, which Isis bestows on terrorists after particularly deadly or high-profile attacks as a mark of honour.
Used widely without extremist links in the Middle East, kunyas are also used as war names by Isis fighters and those in direct contact with the group, such as the cell that carried out the Paris and Brussels attacks.
The statement, issued from Isis’ central propaganda unit, was followed by widespread celebration on unofficial agencies including the al-Battar Foundation, which released a video hailing “revenge” on the US that used footage from local television reports.
But even among Isis supporters, some were unconvinced. In a Telegram chat used by Isis “fanboys” accessed by researcher Raphael Gluck, one jihadi asked for proof.
“The question I keep asking is how to confirm he was indeed a khilafa [caliphate] soldier and not a random actor,” wrote the man, under the name Abdul Abdul.
“I wish dawla [state] will just give us one proof to shatter everything.” Another Isis supporter dismissed his question, urging him to “believe the Muslims”.
Isis first named Paddock as a “soldier of the Islamic State” in a brief statement issued within hours of the shooting, which killed at least 59 people and wounded more than 500.
In an unusual move potentially recognising doubt over its claim, the group’s Amaq news agency swiftly released a separate statement claiming Paddock had converted to Islam several months ago.
Police said they believed Paddock acted alone but were at a loss to explain what might have driven him to carry out the deadliest massacre in modern US history.
“We have no idea what his belief system was,” Clark County Sheriff Joseph Lombardo told reporters. “I can’t get into the mind of a psychopath.”
His brother claimed he was “not an avid gun guy at all”, with “no religious affiliation, no political affiliation” or history of mental illness.
Eric Paddock told CBS his brother was a gambler, saying: “The fact that he had those kinds of weapons is just…where the hell did he get automatic weapons? He has no military background or anything like that.
“He’s a guy who lived in a house in Mesquite and drove down and gambled in Las Vegas.”
Paddock checked into the Mandalay Bay Hotel and Casino on Thursday, taking a room on the 32nd floor overlooking what would be the site of the Route 91 Harvest Festival.
He knocked out two windows to create sniper’s perches used shoot torrents of bullets down on the crowd of 22,000 people, many of whom ducked to the ground unaware they were being shot at from above.
The bloodshed ended after a police Swat team closed in on his room, with Paddock shooting a hotel security officer through the door of his two-room suite and killing himself before officers burst in.
Police said 23 guns were found in Paddock’s hotel room, along with more than 10 suitcases.
Two of the weapons were believed to have been modified to make them fully automatic, and police are investigating where Paddock purchased them.
At Paddock’s home around 80 miles away in Mesquite, authorities found 19 more guns, explosives and thousands of rounds of ammunition.
Several pounds of ammonium nitrate, a fertiliser used to make explosives, were in his car.
Authorities believe Paddock acted alone. While he appeared to have no criminal history apart from a minor traffic offence, his father was a bank robber who was on the FBI’s most-wanted list in the 1960s.
Investigators have seized computers and obtained a warrant to search a second house connected to the gunman in Reno, Nevada.
Source: Independent
