Isis claims Las Vegas shooting: Could they really be behind the worst mass shooting in US history?

Incidents in Marseille, Edmonton and Las Vegas follow first public address from Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in almost a year in which leader called for sympathisers to target anti-Isis coalition countries

Isis’s news agency Amaq has released a statement claiming that Sunday’s mass shooting in Las Vegas was carried out by a “soldier of the caliphate”.

Stephen Paddock, who lived within driving distance of the city, has been identified by police as the suspect responsible for the deaths of at least 58 people at a country music event after he fired on the crowd from the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay hotel and casino.

The shooting is believed to be the deadliest in modern US history. Police initially said the incident was not being investigated as a terrorist act.

“The Las Vegas attacker is a soldier of the Islamic State and carried out the operation in response to appeals targeting coalition countries,” a short statement from Amaq said on Monday afternoon, followed by a second in which Isis claimed 64-year-old Paddock had converted to Islam “several months ago”.

The claim of responsibility for the bloodshed, which cannot be verified, is an unusual one for Isis.

Paddock is believed to have killed himself before police managed to enter the room – and act which in jihadist teachings, unlike “martyrdom” in battle, is not prized. A social media profile, which supposedly belonged to the suspect shows him taking a shot of alcohol, has caused consternation among Islamist extremist sympathisers online.

The suspect’s brother, Eric Paddock, told media he was “dumbfounded” by Sunday's events, not mentioning whether his brother’s behaviour had changed in recent months or whether he had converted to Islam.

While it is rare for Isis to claim an incident in which it appears to have no direct connection to a suspect, the organisation has made several inflated or demonstrably false claims for incidents around the world as pressure on its crumbling self-styled “caliphate” increases.

Senior US officials told Reuters they had no reason to believe Isis was linked to the Las Vegas attack.

The claim that Paddock was a soldier of the “caliphate” comes, however, after a rare public statement from the organisation’s secretive leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who called for followers to “intensify one attack after another against the infidels” in countries involved in the US-led anti-Isis coalition, squeezing the group out of its territory in Syria and Iraq.

The 46-minute-long recording is the first audio of Baghdadi in almost a year. Analysts believe it was released in an attempt to shore up supporters’ morale with the fight for the jihadists’ capital of Raqqa in Syria reaching its endgame.

In the same 24-hour period as the Las Vegas incident, two women were stabbed to death in an attack also claimed by the extremist organisation at a train station in Marseille, France, and four injured in Edmonton, Alberta in two separate attacks carried out by a man suspected of links to extremist ideology.

Isis often waits for an attacker to be killed before making claims it inspired or directed the incident. The France attack, in which the unidentified assailant was shot dead at the scene, was quickly claimed by the group – again as an incident “inspired” by Baghdadi’s renewed call for terror attacks.

In Edmonton, an unnamed Somali national was taken into custody after hitting a police officer with his car and later ramming a truck into four pedestrians. Police said that an Isis flag was found on the dashboard of one of the suspect’s vehicles.

No one was killed in the incident. Isis’s official channels have not made any reference to it. Despite its news agency’s claims, there is no supporting evidence yet that Isis is directly connected to either the Las Vegas or the Marseille attacks. Police investigations in all three cases are still underway.