Fake Islamic State group statement targets Mamdani's NYC mayoral election

"We, in the Islamic State, would like to express our sincerest excitement and deepest commendation for today's jihad in New York City and its valiant and righteous martyrs," says the alleged statement, written in English under logos for the Islamic State group and the jihadists' Amaq News Agency.

The message, titled "Operation 'Manhattan Project'" and dated November 4, 2025, cites the terrorist attacks Al-Qaeda carried out in the United States on September 11, 2001 before describing a "jihad" the day of elections across the United States. The so-called "11/4 operations" were supposedly carried out in response to American aggression by "109 Muslim brothers living in America," according to the text.

Apparent screenshots of the statement, which names US President Donald Trump, rocketed across X as Mamdani, a 34-year-old self-described socialist, became the first Muslim ever elected to lead America's largest city.

"This is all you need to know about jihadi Mamdani. ISIS is openly supporting and calling his victory already," said Alexander Duncan, a Republican running for a US Senate seat representing Texas in 2026, in one such post on Election Day.

AFP previously fact-checked Duncan for amplifying a hoax about a noncitizen voting for Mamdani.

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Screenshot from X taken November 10, 2025

Also among the influencers who linked the communique to Mamdani was Laura Loomer, a far-right figure and self-declared Islamophobe who has met and traveled with Trump.

"The Muslims can't think of a better way for the Muslims to celebrate the victory of a Muslim mayoral candidate today than by committing an ISIS attack in NYC," she wrote on X.

But the purported letter was a fabrication, multiple researchers who monitor the Islamic State organization told AFP.

The Jihad and Terrorism Threat Monitor team at the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), a nonprofit organization that tracks media and extremist communications from the Middle East and North Africa (archived here), told AFP on November 7 they believed the statement was a "hoax." The group said they had not seen it disseminated via any official IS accounts or corroborated by credible pro-IS sources. 

"It is 100 percent fake," added Aaron Zelin, who directs the Islamic State Worldwide Activity Map project at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, in a November 7 email (archived here). "Everything about this poster is a joke for anyone that seriously knows and studies IS."

The fake, which also includes spelling errors, appeared to originate on the far-right message board 4chan, a known haven for conspiracy theories and extremism.

Meili Criezis, a contributor at the Global Network on Extremism and Technology, told AFP the rapid spread of the fake was "concerning" (archived here).

"It has drummed up a lot of hateful rhetoric targeting Mamdani himself, as well as wider Muslim communities," she said in a November 7 LinkedIn message.

Signs of inauthenticity

Among the most obvious clues that the statement was inauthentic were its format and publication in English, according to MEMRI, which said in its statement that the jihadists' Amaq News Agency only releases content in Arabic.

Amaq also specializes in publishing claims of attacks and images documenting the group's military operations, the institute said.

"The format itself is not consistent with Amaq from even just a first glance," said Criezis, who provided AFP with screenshots of real posts from official IS Telegram channels that were written in Arabic and had markedly different headers, branding and coloring than the fake propagated online.

She said she had observed the group's supporters "making fun of it as being disinformation."

"IS supporters themselves know immediately that it's fake."

The Information Epidemiology Lab, another research group, similarly wrote in a post on Substack that the communique diverged from IS "media practices in language, style, formatting, and distribution" (archived here).

Inconsistent with IS ideology

The alleged endorsement of Mamdani also runs counter to what the Islamic State group is known to believe.

Experts told AFP that IS does not endorse politicians and considers elections an affront to Islam, Sharia law and their beliefs about the sovereignty of God.

"The Islamic State would never endorse the outcomes of a democratic election," Criezis said. "The Islamic State opposes any form of democratic governance and governance by nation states, so that fake statement doesn't even make sense within the context of their ideological stance."

The researchers also noted that the extremist group follows a radical interpretation of Sunni Islam. Mamdani's background is Shiite Muslim, a community IS has been hostile towards.

"He wouldn't be considered a real Muslim according to IS, and it would be legitimate to kill him," said Zelin, from the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

J.M. Berger, senior research fellow for the Center on Terrorism, Extremism and Counterterrorism at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies, added in a November 9 email: "ISIS has always saved its worst venom for Muslims who do not conform to its ideology, so its adherents will always despise someone like Mamdani far more than Trump" (archived here).

AFP has debunked other misinformation about Mamdani here.