Was there a Bowling Green Massacre in 2011?

Question

A number of news outlets are publishing claims by Kellyanne Conway that the Obama administration put a moratorium on refugee admissions following a "Bowling Green massacre" in 2011.

However, I can't find any reference to such an event in the usual places.

Here is the original interview quote:

I bet it’s brand new information to people that President Obama had a six-month ban on the Iraqi refugee program after two Iraqis came here to this country, were radicalized, and they were the masterminds behind the Bowling Green massacre. Most people don’t know that because it didn’t get covered.

She also referred to the event on at least two other occasions:

• In a phone interview with cosmopolitan.com:

  [T]wo Iraqi nationals came to this country, joined Isis, traveled back to the Middle East to get trained and refine their terrorism skills, and come back here, and were the masterminds behind the Bowling Green massacre of taking innocent soldiers’ lives away.

• To TMZ (on video):

  There were two Iraqis who came here, got radicalized, joined Isis, and then were the masterminds behind the Bowling Green attack on our brave soldiers.

Was there ever a "Bowling Green massacre"?

Answer 1

All the references I can find indicate that this is something Conway invented (or misspoke) to justify Trump's Muslim travel bans. All major news organisations seem to agree on this.

For example:

• MSN
• IB Times
• Washington Post
• The Guardian
• Huffington Post
• Vox

Vox adds that in 2011, two Iraqi refugees were arrested in Bowling Green, Kentucky, on suspicion of attempting to help Iraqi insurgents. One of their fingerprints was also found on a bomb in Iraq, but they did not harm anyone in Bowling Green.

Vox also adds that there is a "Massacre" in Bowling Green: it's the name of an alleged haunted house.

Edit: Fox news (which is generally friendly to the administration), in an article titled AP FACT CHECK: Conway says she misspoke on 'massacre' reports the following:

Conway tweeted Friday morning that she meant to say "Bowling Green terrorists" during the interview. She hasn't, however, corrected her characterization of Obama's 2011 policy.

The Obama 2011 policy temporarily halted the processing of refugees, it did not stop all visitors from certain countries. It was also instituted after a specific threat, the Bowling Green plot, not as a general measure.

Answer 2

Update: Conway has since tweeted confirming that there was no Bowling Green massacre, claiming it as a mistake:

On @hardball @NBCNews @MSNBC I meant to say "Bowling Green terrorists" as reported here: https://t.co/nB5SwIEoYI [links to ABC article from 2013]

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To address Conway's original statement, which said there was a 2011 Bowling Green massacre and that the issue wasn't covered by the media, we need to look at sources other than just media coverage.

The Global Terrorism Database records all attacks, including those with little or no major press coverage and including those that are unsuccessful or where it is ambiguous or debatable whether the attack should be classed as terrorism or not.

Here are all incidents in the US from 2011:

Even by these loose criteria, none of these can be called a massacre, and none are related to any of the places called Bowling Green in the US.

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To give two additional sources (these are less authoritative than the GTD and are included simply to test the possibility that there was something that for some reason the GTD might have excluded):

• Infoplease maintain a list of "Terrorist Attacks in the U.S. or Against Americans". They have only one entry for 2011 which clearly doesn't fit:

  2011 Jan. 17, Spokane, Washington: a pipe bomb is discovered along the route of the Martin Luther King, Jr. memorial march. The bomb, a "viable device" set up to spray marchers with shrapnel and to cause multiple casualties, is defused without any injuries.

• Wikipedia maintain lists of "terrorist incidents" in early and late 2011. Neither has any entry for the US (these lists are flagged as "incomplete", so the lack of any items doesn't prove anything on its own, it's just an example of an alternate source that might have shown something missed by other sources, but didn't).

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So, no sources have anything remotely resembling a US "Bowling Green Massacre" committed by refugees in the US, including sources like the GTD that attempt to be exhaustive and cover incidents without major media coverage.

Answer 3

Bowling Green was the location of the terrorists, but the IEDs with Alwan's fingerprints were massacring in Iraq, not in Bowling Green, and in 2005, not 2011.

See Former Iraqi Terrorists Living in Kentucky Sentenced for Terrorist Activities:

Alwan, whose fingerprints were found on an unexploded IED found in Iraq, pleaded guilty earlier in the case on Dec. 16, 2011, to all counts of a 23-count federal indictment. He pleaded guilty to conspiring to kill U.S. nationals abroad; conspiring to use a weapon of mass destruction (explosives) against U.S. nationals abroad; distributing information on the manufacture and use of IEDs; attempting to provide material support to terrorists and to AQI and conspiring to transfer, possess and export Stinger missiles.

See also the earlier 31 May 2011 FBI statement:

Over the course of roughly eight years, Waad Ramadan Alwan allegedly supported efforts to kill U.S. troops in Iraq, first by participating in the construction and placement of improvised explosive devices in Iraq and, more recently, by attempting to ship money and weapons from the United States to insurgents in Iraq. His co-defendant, Mohanad Shareef Hammadi, is accused of many of the same activities.

In an ABC news story from 2013 Exclusive: US May Have Let 'Dozens' of Terrorists Into Country As Refugees it is stated:

The case drew attention at the highest levels of government, FBI officials told ABC News, when TEDAC forensic investigators tasked with finding IEDs from Bayji dating back to 2005 pulled 170 case boxes and, incredibly, found several of Alwan's fingerprints on a Senao-brand remote cordless base station. A U.S. military Significant Action report on Sept. 1, 2005 said the remote-controlled trigger had been attached to "three homemade-explosive artillery rounds concealed by gravel with protruding wires."

...

FBI agent Beam told ABC News. "Now you have solidified proof that he was involved in actual attacks against U.S. soldiers

...

The article goes on to explain that there is reason to believe that some of the victims were Pfc. Nathaniel DeTample, 19, Spec. Gennaro Pellegrini, 31, Spec. Francis J. Straub Jr., 24, and Spec. John Kulick, 35.

Answer 4

Combining the evidence from the other answers:

• No, there was no massacre in Bowling Green.
• Yes, there was a Bowling Green terrorist incident that Conway was referring to, that matches her description with the exception of the word massacre.
• No, there is no evidence she invented a massacre to justify a ban on immigration from some countries.

The incident being referred to was the conviction of two Iraqi immigrants for conspiring to aid terrorists in Iraq, including supplying them with weapons. They were arrested in Bowling Green.

In the context of the interview (now referenced in the question), it can be seen that Conway only says the word "massacre" once, and is cut off before finishing. In the rest of the interview, she makes occasional disfluencies and errors, and immediately corrects and clarifies herself. In this case, she had no opportunity, as the topic was immediately changed.

Update: A claim has come out since I posted this answer, suggesting Conway previously used the term "Bowling Green Massacre" in an interview on January 29th. This suggests it wasn't a one time mistake. In that interview she demonstrated she knew more of the facts of the case - i.e. that deaths did not occur in Bowling Green - but her account still contained unsubstantiated (possible erroneous) claims. The same article contains links to more of her own defence of her mistake.

She later corrected herself on Twitter:

On @hardball @NBCNews @MSNBC I meant to say "Bowling Green terrorists" as reported here: https://t.co/nB5SwIEoYI

Reporting after the interview seems to have overblown the story: e.g. MSN:

Kellyanne Conway: Trump adviser makes up 'Bowling Green massacre' terror attack to justify travel ban [...] The only problem was that the so-called bloodbath was a figment of Ms Conway’s imagination.

A far more prosaic explanation was the Conway made a single repeated poor selection of words, with no further opportunity to defend or correct the choice during the interview, and which she corrected afterwards.

More importantly, the example of the Bowling Green incident was not invented, and fit as a suitable example into her argument of why the immigration ban should be in place.