A story claiming that an ISIS leader named Rasheed Muhammad was arrested at JFK airport on January 30th 2017 as a result of executive orders imposed by President Donald Trump is spreading across the Internet.
The story claims that Rasheed Muhammad was arrested due to “heightened restrictions” as a result of the executive order banning residents of 7 Muslim-majority countries from entering the US.
The story appeared to have first surfaced on website Time.com.mx, which reads in part –
Terror suspect, Rasheed Muhammad, was arrested on Tuesday, January 30, at approximately 1:32AM EST at John F. Kennedy International Airport. This marks the first successful story following President Trump’s executive order to protect the nation from foreign terrorist entry into the United States. Muhammad, 32, was questioned due to the heightened security measures that resulted from the presidential executive order. The suspect attempted to enter the country with a tourist visa and claimed to be visiting family in order to attend this year’s Super Bowl LI.
Former Attorney General, Sally Yates, who was ousted by President Trump after failing to support the executive order, released a public apology via popular social media, Snapchat.
The story also includes an apparent apology from ex-attorney general Sally Yates who refused to support the executive order, claiming it to be unlawful.
The article appears to be fake. There have been no reports of any high value ISIS targets being arrested on US soil nor at JFK airport and the image that – according to the article – shows “Rasheed Muhammad” actually depicts terror suspect Najibullah Zazi who is shown being arrested by Federal officials back in 2009. There doesn’t appear to be any ISIS targets by the name “Rasheed Muhammad” from what we can find.
Additionally, there is no records of various quotes made by either Sally Yayes or James Comey as purported in the article.
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Additionally the Time.com.mx website that first published the article appears to be a fake news website. It is not associated with the legitimate brand of Time, despite an obvious attempt to appear to be the same website (using an identical header and logo.)
The story has since been picked up by various hyper-partisan news websites that are notoriously more concerned with generating clicks as opposed to publishing accurate news.
The story is fake, and should not be circulated as true. You can watch our video on the rumour on our YouTube channel here.