Web Desk: A newly set up website by someone in the US (identifiable by domains WHOIS detail) has posted a fake news of former Army Chief General Raheel Sharif’s arrest by Saudi Authorities. The news posted in Arabic language posted on the fake website uses a similar name to that of a popular Arabic website.
Whoever is behind the fake news has cleverly used a mirror website of the actual website to post the news. The fake/mirror website uses “ṭ” instead of “t” in the domain name and was registered earlier in July in the name of some Ryan Wong. Other details of the fake website are given below. (Notice the “ṭ” in the domain name with a dot below ṭ instead of just t)
Whoever is behind the fake website and the fake news clearly wanted to create a controversy regarding the former General Raheel Sharif who is in Saudi Arabia heading the Islamic Military Alliance. The people behind the fake news may even have aims to strain relations between the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan (since the fake website mirrors the website of Dubai based website Emarat Al Youm).
The news was shared a by a number of social media users on Twitter and Facebook but a couple of users soon pointed out that the website is newly set up to dupe readers into thinking that it’s the real website of Emarat Al Youm.