Accounts and pages on social media circulated a statement attributed to the US Central Intelligence Agency, claiming the agency had said that Bashar al-Assad is returning to Syria and will rule once again.
The fact-checking team verified the circulating statement by searching keywords across open sources and reviewing the agency's official accounts, and found that no statement or report to this effect had been issued by it or by any official American body, nor published by any credible international news outlet.
Why is this claim false?
Fabricated statements: The claim leaned on the name of a well-known international intelligence agency to lend the statement credibility, while the agency issued no statement of the kind, suggesting to the reader that there is official American backing for Bashar al-Assad's return to power in Syria.
