OMAR AL-SHISHANI: We will fight them. We will take their woman. We will take their children. They have to come to Islam or they will get wiped out. There is no place in the world for this devil worshipper they can hide. — 3AW, Drive with Tom Elliot, 11th August, 2014

Hello, I'm Paul Barry, welcome to Media Watch.

And that must surely be in line for scoop of the year: Radio 3AW's World Exclusive interview with Omar al-Shishani, a notorious military commander of Islamic State.

Only hours before, on the front page of The Australian, we'd been treated to this horrific photograph of a young Australian boy holding a severed head.

And now, on the line to Tom Elliott in Melbourne from the town of Raqqa where the picture was taken, was the so-called ginger jihadist, from the radical Islamist group that carried out the atrocities.

OMAR AL-SHISHANI: Which beheadings? Which crucifixions you talk about, my friend? TOM ELLIOTT: I don't know. I've just seen pictures and I'm asking you about it. OMAR AL-SHISHANI: Yes. There have been crucifixions. There have been beheadings etcetera but not against Christians because they are Christians. You are acting silly, my friend. TOM ELLIOTT: Okay so who, who is being crucified, who is being beheaded? OMAR AL-SHISHANI: Everyone, everybody who stands about us and make trouble in our land will be get crucified. — 3AW, Drive with Tom Elliot, 11th August, 2014

Over the next ten minutes Al-Shishani told 3AW that American soldiers were cry babies whom they would slaughter, and that Islamic State would fight on till it had conquered the world for Islam.

TOM ELLIOTT: So you want the entire world to be under the law of Allah? OMAR AL-SHISHANI: Correct sir. TOM ELLIOTT: Including Australia, for example? OMAR AL-SHISHANI: If we can swim there, if we can catch any of your boats ... we will come to Australia. — 3AW, Drive with Tom Elliot, 11th August, 2014

Soon the switchboard in Melbourne was lighting up with anguished callers, deeply shocked by what they had heard.

AARON, CALLER: Tom, that's one of the most chilling interviews, I reckon, I've ever heard in all my life ... JANINE, CALLER: That interview was very chilling and it reminded me of another person who, by the name of Hitler ... JACK, CALLER: You've probably made a piece of Australian radio history with an interview like that. Chilling as the previous caller said. Frightening as the other one said. Hitler. — 3AW, Drive with Tom Elliot, 11th August, 2014

Other radio stations across Australia leapt on the story with 5AA in Adelaide, 6PR in Perth, Triple M in Melbourne, 2CC in Canberra and Sydney's 2UE and 2GB all reporting the terrifying warning of Jihad in Australia.

TV and news sitesalso joined in. But some were already questioning if it really was Omar al Shishani, and Tom Elliott was busily reassuring them.

TOM ELLIOTT: And some people have said to me already on email, 'surely he's just made up, surely he was just acting'. No. That really was the commander. — 3AW, Drive with Tom Elliot, 11th August, 2014

Over the next 24 hours the doubts grew stronger.

The Sydney Morning Herald -like 3AW owned by Fairfax Media pulled this story off its website.

And The Australian suggested that Omar may have been bogus .

But Elliott came on air again midweek to tell listeners his interview with the Islamic State commander was the real thing.

TOM ELLIOTT: We believe that that was genuine. Perhaps we'll never know 100 per cent. — 3AW, Drive with Tom Elliot, 13th August, 2014

Well, don't turn off Tom, because we've cracked who he is.

And we started with one leading Australian reporter covering the conflict in Syrian and Iraq who told Media Watch.

I can say with a high degree of certainty that he's been had ... I've sent it to four people who know this scene very well and they all say it's a crude fake, it's not even a good one. — Australian reporter in Iraq, Statement to Media Watch, 14th August, 2014

A British reporter and academic who runs a website documenting the war, agreed, telling Media Watch:

I am certain it is a spoof ... As far as I am aware he has never given any media interviews before, except once to a pro-jihad Chechen website ... but he has certainly not spoken to any Western journalists. — Joanna Paraszczuk, Journalist, ChechensinSyria.com, Statement to Media Watch, 14th August, 2014

And the Lowy Institute's Dr Rodger Shanahan was simply scathing.

You've got to be f--king joking ... The guy who spoke in that is a fluent English speaker with a dodgy accent and it's not Shishani. — Dr Rodger Shanahan, Non Resident Fellow, Lowy Institute for International Policy, Statement to Media Watch, 12th August, 2014

Shanahan also asked rhetorically:

How did they get hold of this guy? Why would this guy ... be violating his operational security by doing an extended interview? — Dr Rodger Shanahan, Non Resident Fellow, Lowy Institute for International Policy, Statement to Media Watch, 12th August, 2014

Why indeed?

So we asked 3AW how they contacted the Islamic State leader and what steps they took to check it was him.

We've not heard back, despite numerous phone calls.

So we've done some digging of our own.

Starting with this Twitter account.

Omar Shishani — Twitter, @ShishaniOmar, August, 2014

Which contains a post that echoes a line from Omar's 3AW interview:

This Khilafah will have NO Borders InshaALLAH, only fronts — Twitter, @ShishaniOmar, 7th August, 2014

At first sight this account looks like it could be genuine with pictures and postings from the conflict .... but it's actually a fairly obvious fake. And a number of things give it away

It's in English for a start :

Dont talk often, i act. I want a bayah too. I have a big terrorist, beware kuffar. — Twitter, @ShishaniOmar, Bio, August, 2014

This Omar also has only 731 followers

And it's a little bit off that last week he posted this cartoon ... from the Simpsons.

Marge, I've joined ISIS! — Twitter, @ShishaniOmar, 15th August, 2014

One of the people this fake Omar follows is Tom Elliott's producer at 3AW, Eliza Houghton.

And even though her Twitter account is protected so you can't read her tweets, we were able to retrieve this message she sent him two hours before last Monday's interview.

@ShishaniOmar Hello. I would like to talk to you on the 3aw Drive radio Melbourne today. Please follow so I can message you. Thankyou — Twitter, @ElizaHoughton, 11th August, 2014

And thus 3AW's world exclusive came about.

And how can we be so sure of this? Well, we managed to get 'Omar' to talk to Media Watch as well.

PAUL BARRY: Was it you who gave the interview to radio 3AW in Melbourne? FAKE OMAR Al-SHISHANI: Yes my little brother it was me. PAUL BARRY: And are you the real Omar Al-Shishani? FAKE OMAR Al-SHISHANI: No, of course not. PAUL BARRY: Are you in Iraq? FAKE OMAR Al-SHISHANI: No. PAUL BARRY: So was the interview, or are you a fake? FAKE OMAR AL-SHISHANI: I am not fake but interview was fake. — Media Watch interview with fake Omar Al-Shishani, 15th August, 2014

So... Not so much a world scoop as a world spoof.

Fake Omar wouldn't give us him real name but says he's a Kurd living in Scandinavia, who is bitterly opposed to Islamic State.

He set up his Twitter account as a joke, he says, but also to expose lazy journalism in the West.

Almost a dozen journalists including the BBC have approached him for an interview but only 3AW has gone ahead.

PAUL BARRY: Were you surprised they broadcast it like that? FAKE OMAR: No because reality always surpass fiction. There are so many donkeys in this world. — Media Watch interview with fake Omar Al-Shishani, 15th August, 2014

So where does all this leave Tom Elliott and 3AW, apart from looking stupid?

Well, you've got to give them credit for enterprise.

But it's shocking that they made so few checks. And that they put Omar live to air in the middle of the afternoon. If he had been a real terrorist it might even have been worse.

And finally it's another reminder that in dealing with the internet you have no idea who you're talking to.