Russia posts ‘proof’ showing US helped IS

MoScow: Russia’s defence ministry posted images it said proved the US was aiding the Islamic State in the Middle East, but social media users pointed out they included a still from a video game.

The ministry’s official account on Tuesday said the black-and-white images were taken on Nov 9 near the Syria-Iraq border and provided “irrefutable proof that the US is providing cover to IS combat units”.

But the monitor Conflict Intelligence Team (CIT), along with a number of social media users, was quick to compare one of the images with an identical still from the wargame AC-130 Gunship Simulator: Special Ops Squadron.

Other images posted to Twitter appeared to be taken from videos released by Baghdad’s Ministry of Defence in 2016, showing the Iraqi Air Force bombing militants near Fallujah, the CIT said. AFP was able to compare the images in the e-mailed defence ministry statement with the images of the videogame on YouTube and confirm the resemblance.

The images were later deleted from the ministry’s Twitter and Facebook accounts, and the ministry said several hours later that there has been a “mistake”, publishing a different set of pictures, calling them “irrefutable proof” of US aid of IS.

“The defence ministry is looking into a civilian employee of one of the departments who attached photos to the defence ministry’s statement by mistake,” a new statement was quoted by Russian agencies as saying. — AFP