Alva Review-Courier -

BEIRUT (AP) — Just hours after Stephen Paddock unleashed a hail of bullets on a country music festival in Las Vegas, the Islamic State group issued a flurry of statements claiming the 64-year-old gunman as one of its own. The quick responsibility claim — discounted by FBI officials — is the latest in a series of dubious or seemingly fake IS claims, reflecting the extremists' eagerness to latch onto global attacks it can tout as its own as it fights for survival in its Mideast base.

Three years after it declared its so-called Islamic caliphate across huge swaths of Syria and Iraq, IS has lost m...