Al Qaeda

Did no Republicans thank U.S. President Joe Biden for taking out the leader of Al Qaeda? No, that's not true: Several GOP members of Congress publicly acknowledged Biden for the July 31, 2022 drone strike in Kabul, Afghanistan that killed Ayman al-Zawahiri, the leader of Al Qaeda and one of the conspirators behind 9/11. The claim was shared on a…

Did then-U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld report that $2.3 trillion was missing the day before the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks? No, that's not true: Rumsfeld gave a speech on September 10, 2001 about the bureaucratic red tape in the U.S. government and his plans to update processes. He remarked that it was difficult to track financial transactions within…

Did the militant group ISIS not exist before Barack Obama became president of the United States in 2009? No, that's not true: Since 2006 ISIS has existed, according to a former member of the National Security Council and according to The Wilson Center, a nonpartisan policy forum in Washington, D.C. The claim appeared in a Facebook post (archived here) on…

Does this video show a Taliban killing in Afghanistan in the summer of 2021? No, that's not true: This footage of the public execution of a woman accused of adultery was identified in 2015 as having been carried out by Nusra Front jihadists outside Idlib, a city in Syria. Nusra Front is the Syrian branch of al-Qaeda. Reuters reported on…

Was the fifth Mike Lindell election fraud video correct in claiming a major American voting machine company is controlled by Chinese Communist Party investors and that voting machines used in the 2020 election were hacked via the internet? No, the claims were made without accompanying evidence. Federal banking and finance forms fall well short of supporting the claim that Dominion…

Did a video featuring Lt. General Tom McInerney and Maria Zack show proof of election fraud? No, that's not true. The retired general and the Nations in Action website founder repeated previously debunked claims about election fraud in the 2020 presidential race, offering no new proof or evidence of their claims. The claims appeared in a video (archived here) published…

Summary: Mike Lindell's video series allegedly proving fraud in the November 2020 elections relies heavily on digital evidence in the form of files and animations that Lindell claims show attacks on the U.S. election infrastructure coming from China and other places. Lindell has never acknowledged where these files and animations came from. Lead Stories traced them back to a website…

Did this U.S. Navy K-9 handler help prevent a terrorism-related attack on Naval Air Station Corpus Christi in Texas? No, that's not true: Although a female sailor did help stop the May 21, 2020, attack, that sailor was not a K-9 handler and is not the sailor shown in the post. The claim appeared as a Facebook post (archived here)…

Did the Obama administration, including then-Vice President Joe Biden: "Outsource" the imprisonment of Al Qaeda leaders, including Osama bin Laden, to Iran; Arrange for bin Laden to be moved to Pakistan for a staged killing in May, 2011; Pay Iran $152 billion to keep its role a secret; Order a SEAL Team 6 helicopter shot down in August 2011 to…

Did Joe Biden leak the identities of SEAL Team 6 members? No, that's not true: Though he publicly praised the SEALs for the operation that killed Osama bin Laden, he did not identify members of the elite unit by name. The claim appeared in a post (archived here) on March 4, 2020. It read: Today would be a good day…