Was Las Vegas a Jihad Attack? There is scant reason to doubt ISIS’ claim of responsibility.

Memphis imam Yasir Qadhi said that the Las Vegas massacre was a manifestation of “white privilege.” Texas imam Omar Suleiman tweeted ridicule of ISIS’ claim of responsibility for the attack: “Breaking: ISIS claims responsibility for hurricane Harvey saying he became Muslim days before hitting Houston.”

They didn’t ridicule the ISIS claim, but unnamed U.S. officials did decisively dismiss it: Reuters reported that “two senior US officials said on Monday that there was no evidence that the shooter who killed at least 50 people in Las Vegas was tied to any international militant group….One of the two US officials discounted Islamic State’s claim of responsibility and said there was reason to believe that the shooter, whom police identified as 64-year-old Stephen Paddock, had a history of psychological problems.”

The only one insisting that the Islamic State was responsible was the Islamic State itself. Its Amaq news agency initially announced: “The Las Vegas attack was carried out by a soldier of the Islamic State and he carried it out in response to calls to target states of the coalition. The Las Vegas attacker converted to Islam a few months ago.”

Then, after its initial claim was dismissed everywhere, the Islamic State doubled down, issuing an official communiqué identifying Paddock as “Abu Abd Abdulbar al-Ameriki.” Even after their claim was dismissed everywhere, they didn’t back away from it. They don’t seem to be afraid that Stephen Paddock will turn out to be a white supremacist neo-Nazi or some such. They don’t seem to be worried about being exposed as grandiose liars.

And historically, they haven’t been liars, at least when they claimed responsibility for jihad attacks. Islamic State expert Graeme Wood notes in The Atlantic that “the idea that the Islamic State simply scans the news in search of mass killings, then sends out press releases in hope of stealing glory, is false,” and that those who claim that ISIS is in the habit of taking credit for attacks it had nothing to do with “do not have a preponderance of prior examples on their side.” Contradicting Suleiman’s ridicule, Wood notes: “The Islamic State does not claim natural disasters. Its supporters rejoice in them, but they reserve their official media for intentional acts.”

This doesn’t mean that Wood accepts everything ISIS says at face value. He reports one false ISIS claim: “In June, a gambling addict shot up and torched the Resorts World casino in Manila, Philippines. The Islamic State claimed credit, with a dubious follow-up alleging that Jessie Javier Carlos, 42, converted to Islam some months before, without telling anyone. That explanation appears to be a total lie.”

Others, however, disagree. Sidney Jones, director of the Institute for Policy Analysis of Conflict, said: “It’s very likely that the Resorts World was a terrorist operation.” Veryan Khan, editorial director and founder of Terrorism Research & Analysis Consortium (TRAC), added that the attack was not just a terror attack, but specifically an ISIS one, “at the very minimum sanctioned – if not directed – by the Islamic State.”

What’s more, Jones added: “It isn’t true that ISIS has a history of claiming others’ attacks as their own.” And Rohan Gunaratna, author of Inside al-Qaeda and head of the International Centre for Political Violence & Terrorism Research, likewise vouched for the general veracity of ISIS’ claims of responsibility: “The propaganda organs of ISIS such as Amaq exaggerate but do not falsely take credit for attacks mounted by other entities.”

While social media is abuzz with charges that only racist, bigoted “Islamophobes” are taking the Islamic State’s claim seriously, it should be noted that neither Jones nor Gunaratna have ever been accused of “Islamophobia,” and that both stated that the Islamic State was generally trustworthy in its claims of responsibility not in response to the Las Vegas attack, but back in July.

In light of all this, it looks as if the Las Vegas massacre was likely a jihad attack. But since that doesn’t fit the establishment media narrative, or the agenda of all too many in law enforcement, don’t expect it to be announced forthrightly by any authorities anytime soon, if ever.

16 Unanswered Questions About The Las Vegas Shooting That Mainstream Media Doesn't Want To Talk About

As you will see below, the evidence is mounting that there were multiple shooters and that this was an operation that was planned well in advance. But according to the mainstream media, a 64-year-old retired accountant with a flabby physique that had no military training whatsoever and that wasn’t very experienced with guns was able to pull the whole thing off all by himself. We are being told that Paddock was a “lone wolf” that didn’t have any ties to terror groups, and since he is now dead nobody is ever going to be able to interrogate him.

But the American people definitely deserve some answers about what took place, and that means that all of us should keep digging.

The following are 16 unanswered questions about the Las Vegas shooting that the mainstream media does not want to talk about…

#1 Photos of Stephen Paddock’s hotel room have been leaked, and one of those photos appears to show a suicide note. Why hasn’t the public been told what is in that note?

#2 Were there additional shooters? A taxi driver reportedly captured video of an automatic weapon being fired out of a lower level window. A video from another angle and brief footage captured by Dan Bilzerian also seem to confirm that automatic gunfire was coming from a floor much lower than the 32nd floor room that Stephen Paddock was located on. And if you weren’t convinced by the first three videos, this fourth video should definitely do it.

#3 Why were law enforcement authorities discussing “another suspect on the fourth floor”, and why isn’t the mainstream media talking about this?

#4 As Jon Rappoport has pointed out, it would have been impossible for Stephen Paddock to kill and wound 573 people in less than five minutes of shooting with the kinds of weapons that he is alleged to have used. So why won’t law enforcement authorities acknowledge this fact?

#5 How in the world did Paddock get 42 guns and “several thousand rounds of ammo” into his hotel room without anyone noticing?

#6 How did someone with “no military background” and that wasn’t a “gun guy at all” operate such advanced weapons? Because what we are being told by the mainstream media just doesn’t make any sense whatsoever. I really like how Natural News made this point…

Far from what the firearms-illiterate media claims, these are not systems that any Joe off the street can just pick up and use to effortlessly mow down 500 people. Running these systems requires extensive training, experience and stamina. It is physically impossible for a guy like Stephen Paddock to operate such a system in the sustained, effective manner that we witnessed, especially when shooting from an elevated position which throws off all the ranging of the weapon system.

Far from being a Navy Seal, Stephen Paddock is a retired accountant senior citizen with a gambling problem and a flabby physique. The only way he could have carried out this shooting is if he were transformed into a human superweapon through a magic wand. I’m calling this “Mission IMPOSSIBLE” because of the physical impossibility of a retired, untrained senior citizen pulling this off.

#7 Why was one woman telling people in the crowd that they were all going to die 45 minutes before the attack?

#8 Why did it take law enforcement authorities 72 minutes to get into Stephen Paddock’s hotel room?

#9 Why did Paddock wire $100,000 to the Philippines last week?

#10 Why was Paddock’s girlfriend, Marilou Danley, in the Philippines when the attack took place? Did she know what was about to happen?

#11 Was Paddock on antidepressants like so many other mass killers in the past have been?

#12 Why was ISIS so eager to take responsibility for this attack, and why was the FBI so quick to dismiss that connection?

#13 Apparently Paddock had earned millions of dollars “through real estate deals”. If he was so wealthy, why would he all of a sudden snap like that?

#14 Why did he move so frequently? It is being reported that Paddock had 27 different residences during his adult life.

#15 Why were nearly all of the exits out of the concert venue completely blocked?…

In essence, the concert trapped the people, preventing them from escaping, and denying them the ability to seek cover. From there, sustained, full-auto gunfire is almost impossible to survive.

From Fox News, a caller named Russell Bleck, who survived the shooting, said live on air, “There were ten-foot walls blocking us in. We couldn’t escape. It was just a massacre. We had nowhere to go.”

#16 Why was a country music festival chosen as the target? Was the goal to kill as many Trump supporters and other conservatives as possible? And is there evidence that Stephen Paddock was connected to Antifa in any way?

At first I thought that this was a fairly straightforward story too, but the more I have dug into it the more complex things have become.

Personally, I have come to the conclusion that Stephen Paddock definitely did not act alone. That means that the others involved in the shooting are still out there, and they must be brought to justice. Let us never forget what these extremely wicked individuals did to innocent civilians such as 27-year-old Tina Frost…

A 27-year-old woman has lost her right eye after a bullet ripped through her face during the Las Vegas concert massacre.

Tina Frost remains in a coma in hospital after undergoing surgery to remove the bullet that became lodged in her eye when a gunman opened fire on the crowd of country music fans on Sunday night.

Frost, who is originally from Maryland but moved to California several years ago, is expected to remain in the coma for a week.

Whoever did this is going to pay greatly. Yes, I do believe that Stephen Paddock was involved. But he did not act alone, and the mainstream media is doing the public a great disservice by ignoring all of the evidence that this was not just a “lone wolf” operation.

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Michael Snyder is a Republican candidate for Congress in Idaho’s First Congressional District, and you can learn how you can get involved in the campaign on his official website.

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