ISIS claims of responsibility for Toronto shooting raise questions of credibility

When ISIS claimed responsibility for the deadly mass shootingin Toronto's Greektown, questions were immediately raised about the validity of those claims and whether the shooter did, indeed,have ties to the extremist group.

In the past, such claims by ISIS in which the grouplinked itself to anattack against civilians were oftenconsidered quite credible, say some experts.

Yet themost recent statements by ISIS about the 29-year-old gunman who opened fire on peopleas he walked downa busy street of shops, bars and restaurants in the city's east end last Sunday, killing two and injuring 13, are being met with more skepticism.

"The probability has become much less certain about what aclaimmeans at this point, because they may be monitoring the news and trying to latch onto whatever they can see," said counterterrorismexpert ThomasJoscelyn.

In a statement released by ISIS's ownAMAQ news agency, the groupsaidthe gunman, Faisal Hussain, "was a soldier of the Islamic State and carried out the attack in response to calls to target the citizens of the coalition countries."

• 'No evidence'Danforthshooter FaisalHussainconnected to ISIS, Toronto police say

But no other details were provided. Toronto's Police Chief Mark Saunders flatly stated that there is no evidence to support a connection so far, and,just a day earlier,a spokesperson for federal Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale said "there is no national security nexus to the shooter."

Shifting structures

According to Rita Katz, director of the SITE Intelligence Group, which tracks global terror networks, the statement released by ISISwas "typical wording used for ISIS-inspired attacks."

She tweeted thatISIS is eager to embrace any loosely applicable attack in the West in the wake of its losses in Iraq and Syria,and that its embrace of Hussainwas "questionable."

From 2014 to about 2017, ISIS seemed to have a fairly straightforward processat play in terms of how theyclaimedattacks, saidAmarnathAmarasingam, a senior research fellow at Institute for Strategic Dialogue and a prominent Canadian anti-extremist researcher.

ISIS had trusted individualsaroundthe world. When peoplewereinspired to launch attacks, the attackerscouldreach out to give these individuals proof of support by sending themvideos or oaths ofallegiance, Amarasingam said.

But sometime in mid-2017, things changed for the terror group, he said.Many of its trusted individuals were arrested, and they lost the ability to maintainthese networks in Syria and Iraq as coalition forces took back major ISIS-controlled cities.

"A lot of this chain of transmission from attack to claim startedto fall apart, andtheystarted to get sloppy, and theystartedto claim quite bizarre attacksthat were quite obviouslynotterrorism-related."

One of the attacks they took credit for was the Las Vegas shooting, in whichStephen Paddock opened fire at concertgoers fromaroom at the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino, killing 58 people and injuring more than 500.

Authorities have so far saidthere has been no evidence to link Paddock to ISIS.

Joscelyn, who is also senior editor of the Long War Journal, agreed that up to around 2017, there was a"very high probability" that if ISISclaimed some sort of connection to anindividual terrorist or small group of terrorists, then there was often something to the claim.

That's why anyclaim has to be compared with other data or other evidence, he said.

"What we need to find out is [if] this guy had any sort of digital ties, or any other sort of connections, that puthiminto the types of casethat we've seen in the past," he said. "Thus far, I haven't seen anything like that."

Online ties

In most cases, a claim of responsibility from ISIS will not mean it orchestrated the attack. Instead, many of the deadly incidentsincludingthe Florida Pulse nightclub shooting and the 2015 attack in San Bernardino, Calif.are said to be "inspired" by ISIS.

"What it means is somebody who has sworn allegiance to them online, or has had some sort of digital tie to them or some other sort of connection," saidJoscelyn.

Erin Miller, programmanager of the Global Terrorism Database at the University of Maryland, saidthe phrase "soldier of of the Islamic State" is oftentranslated as a claim of responsibility.

"It's actually giving a lot of credit to Islamic State where it's not clear that credit is due in terms of the operational responsibility for the attack."

And it is possible, she said, that in the case of Hussain, ISIS claimed him as a soldier basedon news reports that he may have been a supporterwithout any other evidence to back it up.

That would be a change from recent years, said Amarasingam, when media reports would not be enough for ISIS.

In thepast,there would havebeenevidence that the attacker had beentalking tosomebody in Syriaor had exchanged messages online withan ISIS affiliate, he said.

• Community mourns loss of 2 young lives inDanforthshooting

"They always had tohave someevidence ofreal connection," he said. "Ithink, these days, the thresholdfor aclaimismuchlower for them.

"I don't think they have the same kind ofevidencethey used to.Things are getting a bit more chaotic, and they're making mistakes."

Terrorism analystMichael S. Smith IIsaid it would not be without precedent that the group has claimedresponsibilityfor an attack in the West and no information emerges to support that claim.

However, he said, "itis rare for Islamic State to claim responsibility for an attack in the West and for information to not subsequently emerge that supports that claim."

As of today,Amarasingamsaid, theredoesn'tseem to be any connection between Hussain andanybody from ISIS, but that could change.

"It's not to say, in a week's time or a of couple days, they won't find information on his phone or information on his computer that he was talking to someone in Syria,or talking to somebody in ISIS central,or talking to a supporter somewhere around the world."

With files from CBC's Nicole Ireland andReuters