How the Mainstream Media MISLEADS THE PUBLIC on Terrorist Threats

by Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya, Global Research:

Public perception about the so-called “Global War on Terror” is manipulated in various ways by a trail of misinformation and disinformation.

This article is a case study on the October 22, 2015 lone gunman rampage of Parliament Hill in Ottawa that was used by the government of Steven Harper to justify Canadian entry into the US war in Iraq and, later, the US-led war on Syria. Despite being proven otherwise, the attack by Michael Zehaf-Bibeau was reported as being linked to the so-called Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL/DAESH/ISIS/IS).

How and Why Facts Get Lost or are Ignored

On the day that Michael Zehaf-Bibeau went on his rampage, a tangled web of information was erected. In all the reporting by the media, the sources were lost. What resulted from this was the perception that Canada was under a foreign-planned attack led by the ISIL/DAESH.

One important source, @ArmedResearch, a US-based Twitter account that presents itself as a microblog for military studies, claimed that the Ottawa attack on October 22 was connected to an attack which took place two days earlier at at Saint Jean-sur-Richelieu, Quebec (October 20).

According to @Armed Research, Martin Couture-Rouleau (who called himself Ahmad LeConverti, which means “Ahmed the convert” in French), who was behind the Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu car ramming attack on October 20, 2014 and Michael Zehaf-Bibeau were in some way connected. Couture-Rouleau had killed a Canadian soldier two days before Zehaf-Bibeau went on his rampage on October 22.

Presented subsequently in various media reports, the two incidents were said to be interconnected. They were portrayed as a coordinated and orchestrated attack. Additionally, the same Twitter account which posted a picture of Zehaf-Bibeau at the Canadian National War Monument starting his rampage within hours of the attack in Ottawa, namely @ArmedResearch, claimed that the photographs came from an ISIL/DAESH source. These were the first pictures of Zehaf-Bibeau and were widely reproduced by the Canadian and international media.

@ArmedResearch, which was instrumental in disseminating the photograph, claimed that the source of the photograph was an ISIL/DAESH or ISIS linked Twitter account named @Breaking3zero. In league with the webpage Heavy.com, @ArmedResearch implied that “Martin Couture-Rouleau followed the same Canadian-based pro-ISIS Twitter account.”

Complicating the matter is the existence of another Twitter account, @V_IMS. @V_IMS which was reported to be an ISIL/DAESH account. Ottawa Citizen journalist Shaamini Yogaretnam reported on October 23 that @V_IMS was suspended within an hour after it began circulating the same pictures.

Maybe it was because most of the entries and posts on @Breaking3zero were in French and @ArmedResearch could not understand, but what Heavy.com  claimed was categorically false. The person behind the post was French-Canadian writer William Reymond.

On October 25, Reymond even sent a Tweet message to Fox News about its faulty reporting in a Fox News article misleadingly titled “Citizen Jihadists: ISIS uses ‘lone wolves’ to mount cheap, effective attacks on US soil” by Pierre Chiareamonte.

Fox News not only misleadingly insinuated that the ISIL/DAESH was behind the Ottawa attack, but also claimed that the picture of Zehaf-Bibeau was posted by the ISIL/DAESH, meaning that @Breaking3zero was an ISIL/DAESH Twitter account. Likewise, @Breaking3zero sent a message to Suzanne Wilton’s account stating: “We ARE NOT a pro ISIS account ! That’s outrageous ! [sic.]”

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