What Does It Mean When ISIS Claims Responsibility For An Attack?
When the Islamic State says its "soldiers" carried out an attack, it doesn't necessarily mean the group planned or directed the terrorist act — or even knew about it in advance.
It's a simple, frequently recurring phrase: "The Islamic State has claimed responsibility for the attack." But it raises some questions: Is the claim credible or just an empty assertion, and if it's true, what does "responsibility" actually entail?
Experts who closely follow the Islamic State say that in general when it comes to attacks in the West, an ISIS claim of responsibility usually means there was some sort of connection. But the attack might have been planned, funded and directed by ISIS — or it could just have been inspired by the group's propaganda.
Here's a look at where that simple sentence comes from, and what, exactly, it
