Fact Check

ISIS Leader Calls for American Muslim Voters to Support Hillary Clinton

A fake news item reported that ISIS' second-in-command had urged Muslim-Americans to vote for Hillary Clinton.

Published Oct. 21, 2016

Claim:
The second-highest ranking ISIS member urged Muslim-Americans to vote for Hillary Clinton.

On 11 October 2016, the web site World News Daily Report (WNDR) published an article reporting that a top ISIS leader had directed Muslim-Americans to vote for Hillary Clinton:

Top ISIS leader now believed to be the number two behind the terrorist organization, Amadh Abu Makmud Al-alwani, put up a video [in October 2016] following the second presidential debate asking American Muslim voters to support Hillary Clinton.

The controversial video that was taken down by YouTube only hours after it was uploaded showed top ISIS leader Amadh Abu Makmud Al-alwani threatening those who would decide to vote for Donald Trump and calling them “infidels” and “goat f—-ers”.

“This (dog-faced) scumbag must not reach Washington. Although it is a sin to put an inferior being such as a woman into a position of power, it is the true plan of Satan to divide the Muslims of America. It would be dirty and danis (filthy) to vote for Trump,” he explained.

There was nothing to this story, which was published by World News Daily Report, a fake news site. WNDR's modus operandi involves attaching unrelated images to clickbait fabrications, using the sensational material to generate traffic on social media. The image appended to this article depicts cleric Maulana Fazlullah (believed to have been involved in the attempted assassination of Malala Yousafzai). The name "Amadh Abu Makmud Al-alwani" appears only in connection with links to this fabricated claim and is not the name of any known or high-ranking ISIS operative.

Kim LaCapria is a former writer for Snopes.