Has anyone noticed how many Arab leaders get killed off — then born again — on Twitter?
Whether it's Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, or Daesh leader Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi, It seems there's a new social media hoax death almost every week. These high flying rumors bask in Twitter glory for a couple of hours before dying a slow social media death. But not before the whole of the Arab world catches on with retweets, comments and (fake) photo evidence.
Elsewhere on Al Bawaba, we did a roundup of some of the most ridiculous Internet rumors coming out of the MENA region, and we were surprised by how many high-level fake killings were coming out. Here's our own roundup of the morbid side of Arabic Twitter.
1. Syria's President Bashar al-Assad has been killed off a bunch of times — the most recent of which was only in April, when a Tunisian website tweeted out an old video from the FSA in which rebel commanders claim the president had been shot in the head by his own security personnel.
2. Daesh's Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi has suffered similar digital fates — For all we know, at this point, he could have been dead at least a year ago. Remember only earlier this month, when Arabic and Israeli media reported the Daesh leader had been seriously wounded in a US airstrike. Then he was at an Israeli hospital in the occupied Golan Heights (!!) receiving treatment before dying. By the time this Twitter rumor got completely deflated, news agencies were already annoucing Baghdadi had a successor. Oops.
3. Former Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh — Earlier this month on Reddit, news was rolling around about the former president being killed in a Saudi airstrike in Yemen's capital Sanaa during a meeting with a top Houthi commander. Hours later, someone added to the Reddit thread announcing both Saleh and that Houthi commander were 'alive and kicking.'
4. Saudi's King Abdullah, who is actually dead now, but we've been fooled a lot — Before his actual passing in Janaury, this Saudi king died dozens of times on social media. Once, weeks before his real death, a series of tweets from Saudi officials led the Internet into thinking he was already dead, subsequently sending oil stock prices through the roof.
