Tag: ISIL

Anonymous Hackers Target Social Media Accounts Linked To IS

Hacking group Anonymous has claimed responsibility for taking down hundreds of social media accounts allegedly linked to the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) militants, including some belonging to Malaysians, media reported on Tuesday.

“ISIS, we will hunt you, take down your sites, accounts, emails and expose you,” the group warns in a two-minute video posted on YouTube, saying that its campaign targeting the militants under the name #OpISIS is continuing.

Anonymous has published a list of 800 Twitter accounts, Google Plus accounts, recruitment websites, Facebook accounts and email addresses that it had exposed and targeted, the Daily Mirror reported on Monday.

Some of the 11 Facebook accounts revealed were believed to be owned by Malaysians, according to Sin Chew Daily.

The video was Anonymous’ second warning in two months against ISIS, which has built up a large social media presence with accounts on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and Instagram, BBC reported.

The Islamists, who have seized large swaths of Iraq and Syria, used the Internet as a channel for disseminating propaganda, circulating brutal videos of hostages being killed and as a tool for radicalising and recruiting new members.

Anonymous “declared war” on websites run by ISIS last month after an attack on a magazine’s offices in Paris.

Yet the hacking group’s efforts did not manage to silence ISIS on the Internet, as the Islamists have recently released a social media guide to help members create accounts that are not easy to detect.

Anonymous is made up of activists and hackers claiming to defend and protect democracy.

“We are Muslims, Christians, Jews, we are hackers, crackers, Hacktivist, phishers, agents, spies, or just the guy from next door,” says the voice in Anonymous video.

“Remember the terrorists that are calling themselves Islamic State are not Muslims.”

Source: www.straitstimes.com

February 11, 2015
Barack Obama Confirms Death Of American Hostage Held By IS

WASHINGTON (REUTERS) – US President Barack Obama on Tuesday confirmed the death of Kayla Jean Mueller, an American aid worker who had been held hostage by ISIS (Islamic State in Iraq and Syria) militants, saying the United States would “find and bring to justice the terrorists who are responsible”.

Mueller’s family also said in a statement that they were “heartbroken” to learn of her death and released a copy of a letter she had written in 2014 while in captivity.

The comments by Obama and the family come four days after ISIS said Mueller, a 26-year-old humanitarian worker from Arizona, was killed when Jordanian fighter jets bombed a building where she was being held, although Jordan expressed doubt about the Islamist militant group’s account of her death. Mueller was determined to have died after her ISIS captors privately contacted her family over the weekend, a White House spokeswoman said.

“Over the weekend, the family received a private message from Kayla’s ISIL captors containing additional information,”National Security Council spokeswoman Bernadette Meehan said, using an acronym for Islamic State. “Once this information was authenticated by the intelligence community, they concluded that Kayla was deceased.”

A family representative, who asked not to be identified by name, said the family received a private message from her captors over the weekend containing “additional information, which the intelligence community authenticated and deemed credible”.

Neither Obama nor the family gave details of the circumstances of her death. US officials said that the family received an email and photo from ISIS that confirmed she was dead.

US officials said they had no evidence to support Islamic State claims that she was killed in a Jordanian air strike, adding the details surrounding her death remained unclear.

“It’s unclear from the intelligence picture how she died,”said one US official, speaking to Reuters on condition of anonymity.

Mueller was the last-known American hostage held by Islamic State, which controls wide areas of Syria and Iraq. She was taken hostage while leaving a hospital in the northern Syrian city of Aleppo in August 2013.

The group has beheaded three other Americans, two Britons and two Japanese hostages – most of them aid workers or journalists – in recent months.

“No matter how long it takes, the United States will find and bring to justice the terrorists who are responsible for Kayla’s captivity and death,” Obama said in a statement released by the White House.

“ISIL is a hateful and abhorrent terrorist group whose actions stand in stark contrast to the spirit of people like Kayla,” Obama added.

Even after ISIS Friday announced her death on Friday, the family had expressed hope that she was still alive.

On Tuesday, her parents and brother issued a statement saying, “Kayla was a compassionate and devoted humanitarian. She dedicated the whole of her young life to helping those in need of freedom, justice and peace.”

The family also released a handwritten letter they said she wrote to them in the spring of 2014 while in captivity. In it, she states that she was “in a safe location, completely unharmed + healthy.”

“I have been shown in darkness, light + have learned that even in prison, one can be free,” the letter states. “I am not breaking down + I will not give in no matter how long it takes,” the letter states.

US Defence Secretary Chuck Hagel said in a statement, “The world is united in condemning ISIL’s continued murder and imprisonment of innocents.”

Source: www.straitstimes.com

February 11, 2015
Former Islamic State Commandant Arrested In Kuala Lumpur

KUALA LUMPUR – A 45-year-old former commandant of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), on the most-wanted list in the Middle East, was detained by the Malaysian Police Counter Terrorism unit in Kuala Lumpur on Jan 31.

The suspect, who had been part of the terrorist group operating in Syria from May 2012 to May 2014, was deported to his country of origin yesterday (Feb 6) after five days in detention for allegedly using a fake passport.

Police, who seized a large amount of money from the suspect, have yet to release more details of the operation, saying keeping the identity of the suspect under wraps is vital until the entire operation is completed.

The arrest was a result of cooperation between Malaysian police and other foreign countries that have vouched to tackle the terror group from widening its influence abroad.

Intelligence sources said the man from the Middle East who arrived in mid-January was detained at a four-star hotel near Bukit Bintang.

Inspector-General of Police Khalid Abu Bakar in a statement today (Feb 7) confirmed the arrest, but did not link the terrorist to any group.

It is understood that the suspect had travelled to several countries in the Middle East, North Africa and South-east Asia before slipping into Malaysia.

“The Royal Malaysian Police takes a serious view of the activities of foreign terrorists attempting to use Malaysia as a transit, safe haven and base of operations.

“The success in the suspect’s arrest is the result of close cooperation between the police and foreign enforcement agencies. This cooperation will continue to eradicate and manage the threat of terrorism, be it regionally or globally,” Mr Khalid said.

About 59 Malaysians are officially known to have joined ISIS.

More than 65 have been arrested by police either on their way to Syria and Iraq or on their way back since the start of last year.

Source: www.todayonline.com

February 8, 2015
Jordan Preacher Lashes Out Against Islamic State Militants Over Death Of Jordanian Pilot

AMMAN — A prominent jihadi preacher lashed out today (Feb 6) against Islamic State militants for burning to death a Jordanian pilot, saying this is “not acceptable in any religion”.

Mr Abu Mohammed Maqdesi, considered a spiritual mentor for many al Qaeda militants, spoke a day after being released from more than three months in detention in Jordan.

His release and harsh criticism of the Islamic State group come at a time when the Jordanian government is trying to win broad popular backing for intensified airstrikes against the militants in response to the killing of the pilot.

Earlier this week, Islamic State militants released a video showing the pilot, Lt. Muath Kaseasbeh, being burned to death in a cage.

In an interview with the Jordanian TV station Roya, Maqdesi said that such an act “is not acceptable by any religion and by anyone”.

The cleric indicated that he had been involved in back-channel talks to arrange a possible prisoner swap to win the release of the pilot, who was captured after his plane crashed over Syria in December. Jordan offered last week to swap an al Qaeda prisoner for the pilot, but said after the release of the video that it became clear that the pilot had already been killed in early January.

Maqdesi said he believed the militants were never serious about arranging a swap.

“During my communication, they lied and they were evasive,” he said. “They acted like they were interested (in a swap), but in fact they were not interested.”

He also criticised IS for declaring a caliphate last year in the areas under its control in Syria and Iraq. Maqdesi said a caliphate, or state run according to Islamic law, is meant to bring Muslims together, but that the militants have been a divisive force.

A decade ago, Maqdesi was considered a mentor of the al Qaeda branch in Iraq, a precursor to the Islamic State group. However, the cleric fell out with his protégés over their methods, including attacks on fellow Muslims.

Jordan arrested the cleric in October, after he criticised Jordan’s participation in a US-led military coalition against Islamic State. Jordan, which borders Syria and Iraq, joined the coalition in September.

In the wake of the killing of the pilot, Jordan said it would intensify its attacks. Yesterday, dozens of fighter jets struck Islamic State weapons depots and training areas, the military said.

Source: www.todayonline.com

February 7, 2015
IS Militants Selling Abducted Iraqi Children As Sex Slaves And Crucifying Or Burying Others Alive

Militants from the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) are selling abducted Iraqi children at markets as sex slaves, and killing other youth, including by crucifixion or burying them alive, a United Nations watchdog said on Wednesday.

Iraqi boys aged under 18 are increasingly being used by the militant group as suicide bombers, bomb makers, informants or human shields to protect facilities against U.S.-led air strikes, the U.N. Committee on the Rights of the Child said.

“We are really deeply concerned at torture and murder of those children, especially those belonging to minorities, but not only from minorities,” committee expert Renate Winter told a news briefing. “The scope of the problem is huge.”

Children from the Yazidi sect or Christian communities, but also Shi’ites and Sunnis, have been victims, she said.

“We have had reports of children, especially children who are mentally challenged, who have been used as suicide bombers, most probably without them even understanding,” Winter told Reuters. “There was a video placed (online) that showed children at a very young age, approximately eight years of age and younger, to be trained already to become child soldiers.”

Islamic State is a breakaway al Qaeda group that declared an Islamic caliphate across parts of Syria and Iraq last summer. It has killed thousands and forced hundreds of thousands from their homes, in what the United Nations has called a reign of terror.

On Tuesday, the group, which is also known as ISIL, released a video showing a captured Jordanian pilot being burned alive.

The U.N. body, which reviewed Iraq’s record for the first time since 1998, denounced “the systematic killing of children belonging to religious and ethnic minorities by the so-called ISIL, including several cases of mass executions of boys, as well as reports of beheadings, crucifixions of children and burying children alive”.

A large number of children have been killed or badly wounded during air strikes or shelling by Iraqi security forces, while others had died of “dehydration, starvation and heat”, it said.

ISIL has committed “systematic sexual violence”, including “the abduction and sexual enslavement of children”, it said.

“Children of minorities have been captured in many places… sold in the market place with tags, price tags on them, they have been sold as slaves,” Winter said, giving no details.

The 18 independent experts who worked on the report called on Iraqi authorities to take all necessary measures to “rescue children” under the control of Islamic State and to prosecute perpetrators of crimes.

“There is a duty of a state to protect all its children. The point is just how are they going to do that in such a situation?”, Winter said.

Source: http://english.alarabiya.net

February 6, 2015