US imam says Israel created ISIS, echoing Pakistan-based terrorist organisation

A Shia imam from California in the US has claimed that the Islamic State group — also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) or the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) — was created by Israel. 

Now, the statement could have been simply dismissed off hand, had a terrorist organisation in Pakistan not levelled similar allegations in May this year. 

ISIS is currently limited to its latest stronghold of Tal Afar in Iraq after it was driven out of Mosul. However, that has not stopped the terrorist group from claiming responsibility for terrorist attacks in Spain and Finland. 

The allegations

A Fox News report has quoted Imam Sayed Moustafa Al-Qazwini — who it describes as a "popular" Shia preacher — as saying at the Islamic Educational Centre in Orange County on June 23: "All of you know who established ISIS, al-Qaeda and all of those terrorist organisations."

According to the report, he went on to add: "You know very well. You know who paid for them, who financed them, who helped them, who purchased weapons for them, who even trained them, who protected them. This is not the production of Islam. Islam is not responsible for ISIS. Most of their officers were trained in Israel, including Abu Bakr al-Baghadi."

He seemed to be echoing — at least in part — the statements of Mehmood Shah, the chief of proscribed terrorist organisation Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT).

Shah had, in late May, responded to allegations that the LeT pushes youths to display ISIS flags in the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir: "The allegation is completely baseless. In Jammu and Kashmir, ISIS is a part of RAW's plot to sabotage the freedom movement. ISIS is a terrorist organisation founded and funded by India, America and Israel to disintegrate and kill Muslims in the world."

The RAW he was referring to is India's secretive spy agency Research and Analysis Wing.

Red flag or conspiracy theory?

While two people — each halfway across the world from another — giving similar statements on terrorism can be cause for concern for global intelligence agencies, this could be a simple case of conspiracy theory or misinformation. 

Elliot Zweig, executive director of the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), told Fox News this was just propaganda being fed to Muslims across the world. MEMRI, it may be noted, is a non-profit organisation headquartered in Washington DC which monitors and analyses news reports for radical content pertaining to West Asia. 

Zweig, meanwhile, told Fox News about the Imam's statement: "These types of conspiracy theories have been prevalent in the Muslim world, especially the Middle East, for decades as MEMRI has revealed. One would hope that in America, all communities, including the Muslim community, would be immunised from such ludicrous propaganda, let alone propagate it."