ISIS Claims Las Vegas Shooter Converted to Islam Six Months prior to Massacre

In the latest edition of its weekly Al-Naba online magazine, the militant group Islamic State (ISIS) provided more information regarding the claims that the Las Vegas shooter Stephen Paddock converted to Islam prior to killing 58 people and injuring hundreds more on October 1, shooting at the crowd at the Route 91 Harvest music festival, Newsweek reports.

The militant group specified that Paddock, who the group called Abu Abdul Barr al-Amriki, had allegedly “converted to Islam six months ago” and provided a detailed description of Sunday’s massacre.

An infographic titled “The Invasion of Las Vegas” claims that Paddock, referred to as Abu Abdul Bar al-Amriki, was a “soldier of the caliphate” and converted to Islam six months prior to his Las Vegas shooting spree.

“A soldier of the caliphate attacked a gathering of 22,000 Americans at a concert in the city of Las Vegas, resulting in nearly 60 killed and 600 injured. Brother Abu Abdul Bar stationed himself in a room on the 32nd floor of a hotel overlooking the concert and opened fire continuously on the crowds using 23 firearms and more than 2,000 bullets and died, may God accept him, after running out of ammunition,” Al-Naba states.

Newsweek adds that U.S. authorities have examined ISIS’s claims, but have said they don’t believe the militants were involved in the mass shooting. Paddock has not been revealed to host any radical connections or converted to Islam at any point.

ISIS has previously claimed responsibility for attacks only to be later denied by authorities, such as an apparent botched robbery in the Philippines. Terrorism and security analysis experts, however, such as Kronos Advisory co-founder Michael S. Smith II and The New York Times correspondent Rukmini Callimachi have pointed out that the group is rarely off and such a blatantly false narrative would be out of character for the social media savvy jihadists, Newsweek writes.

However, ISIS has yet to provide any substantive evidence of Paddock’s connection to the group and all of its information, except for his alleged conversion to Islam, has more or less matched readily available news reports, Newsweek notes.