White House adviser Kellyanne Conway ridiculed over 'Bowling Green massacre' claims

A senior adviser to President Donald Trump, Kellyanne Conway has come under fire after accusing two Iraqi refugees of a massacre that never occurred.

In an interview to Chris Matthews on MSNBC, Conway referred to the alleged massacre to defend Trump's indefinite ban on Syrian refugees and a 90-day ban on travellers from seven Muslim-majority countries.

"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," she said.

"Most people don't know that because it didn't get covered, "she said in an interview aired on Thursday night.

So far, there is no evidence to prove that any such massacre happened in Bowling Green, Kentucky in that time period.

Conway could be referring to an incident in 2011 in Bowling Green, where two Iraqi refugees were arrested on terrorism charges for alleged links to Improvised Explosive Device (IED) attacks against US troops in Iraq.

A Department of Justice release from 2013 said: "Mohanad Shareef Hammadi, 25, a former resident of Iraq, was sentenced to life in federal prison, and Waad Ramadan Alwan, 31, a former resident of Iraq, was sentenced to 40 years in federal prison."

It further said that the two men "admitted using improvised explosive devices (IEDs) against U.S. soldiers in Iraq and who attempted to send weapons and money to Al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) for the purpose of killing U.S. soldiers."

This incident led to Barack Obama ordering a fresh review of the 57,000 refugees who had been resettled in the US and more checks for those who applied to enter the US in the future. This resulted in a significant slowdown of the refugee process.