FBI: Viral Report Of Raid, Arrests At Dearborn Mosque Is Fake News

DEARBORN (WWJ/AP) - Every week the Associated Press publishes a roundup of some of the most popular, but completely untrue, headlines of the week.

One of the latest comes from Michigan, as FBI spokesman Timothy Wiley says there's no truth to a report about a raid on a mosque in Dearborn which netted 11 ISIS terrorists.

The report claimed 40 suicide vests were found and quoted an official from the "Department of Refugee Affairs" — which is not the name of a federal agency — as saying a terror attack was imminent.

The bogus story went viral after it was first published on conservative website "Reagan Was Right." A photo of police cars which accompanied the story appears to have been first published in a story about an unrelated arrest in the South American country of Guyana three years ago, according to the AP.

The Detroit area, with a concentration in Dearborn, is home to one the nation's largest Arab-American and Muslim communities. The Islamic Center of America — North America's largest mosque — is located in Dearborn, on Ford Road.

In 2015, armed marches were planned by Christians in Dearborn after a FOX News report erroneously claimed women had been stoned in Dearborn and there was an honor killing over condoms under "Sharia law." FOX host Bill O'Reilly later apologized for the false report, which he said was meant as satire.

[Read the complete "Not Real News" report from the Associated Press here.]

© Copyright 2018 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. The Associated Press contributed to this report.