A pro-ISIS hacking collective known as the United Cyber Caliphate (UCC), which has a history of posting online “kill lists,” posted a hit list on July 25 with the names of 700 U.S. Army soldiers. United Cyber Caliphate’s list begins with the headline, “We want them #dead. #Revenge for Muslims. kill the dogs.”
A Pentagon official told the Washington Times, which broke the story, that analysts have not found an open source for an online “kill list.” The official theorized that one or more government sites might have been hacked.
The staff at the Times reviewed the kill list and found the names of soldiers stationed at a number of bases, including Fort Riley, Kansas; Fort Bragg, North Carolina; Fort Leavenworth, Kansas; and Fort Belvoir, Virginia. The reporter says the list includes the soldiers’ names, addresses, phone numbers, and official e-mail addresses.
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Army officials released a statement to the Times reading:
There is no evidence of any malicious activity or breach at this time on any Army network. The Army is coordinating efforts with the Department of Defense as we work to determine the validity of any potential threats to personnel. In the meantime, our Criminal Investigation Command is working with the Federal Bureau of Investigation and has provided the information to the chains of command. As always, we encourage soldiers to take prudent measures to limit the sharing of personal information online.
The military personnel kill list is not the first such list posted by the United Cyber Caliphate. The New York Daily News ran an article on June 8 stating that the pro-ISIS group posted a list with the names, addresses, and e-mail addresses of more than 8,000 people on June 6 and has urged its followers to “kill them strongly to take revenge for Muslims.”
The News cited a report published by Vocativ, a media and technology company founded by cyber-security expert Mati Kochavi, which stated that the UCC has put out similar kill lists in the past, posting the information on the encrypted messaging app Telegram, in both English and Arabic. Vocativ reported that the pro-ISIS group claims that its kill list includes names, addresses, and e-mail addresses belonging to 8,318 people, which makes it one of the longest target lists that ISIS-affiliated groups have distributed. The article said that most of the names and the accompanying addresses listed appear to belong to people in the United States, Australia, and Canada.
The News article also referred to a recent report by Flashpoint Global Partners, a data services provider of threat intelligence from the Deep and Dark Web, which said the United Cyber Caliphate was formed in April following a merger of several hacking groups, but that it is “poorly organized” and not officially recognized by ISIS.
In addition to creating the “kill lists,” UCC has also engaged in more traditional hacking activities. A report posted back in April on the website of Hackread, a cyber security and “hacking news” website based in Dubai, noted: “Hackers supporting the so-called Islamic State (ISIS) aka Daesh terrorist group have joined hands with other terrorist supporting groups to form a joint team and collectively target the cyberspace in the West.” The report went on to state:
Post-merger UCC the pro-ISIS [group] conducted several successful cyber attacks including the hacking of NewsWeek’s Twitter account, website, Facebook account and live transmission of [its] French TV Station and the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC). The group also threatened the US and West [with] an “Electronic Holocaust.”
The major threat, of course, comes not from the pro-ISIS United Cyber Caliphate, but from ISIS itself. NBC News released a report on August 3 in which it said it has exclusively obtained a map showing the global expansion of ISIS. It said the map is part of a classified briefing document dated “August 2016” prepared by the National Counterterrorism Center (a branch of the government’s office of the Director of National Intelligence) and received by the White House.
The map, notes NBC News:
Shows a stunning three-fold increase in the number of places around the globe where ISIS is operating.
U.S. State Department documents indicated that in 2014, when the U.S. military began its campaign to destroy the extremists, there were only seven nations in which the fledgling state was operating.
By 2015, according to the State Department’s own numbers, there were nearly double that — 13 countries.
An important question is, how has the terrorist group that NBC described as being a “fledgling state” in 2014 managed to grow into a major organization posing a threat to a large part of the world in just two years?
An explanation readily available to those in the know, but usually ignored or covered up by the Obama administration, is that ISIS grew so rapidly because it received assistance from outside sources, including the U.S. government. An important article that revealed much of this scenario was posted by The New American on August 1 and began:
Once-secret e-mails belonging to Democrat Party presidential nominee Hillary Clinton expose the involvement of Obama’s then-secretary of state in shipping weapons to jihadists, including to terrorists in the Islamic State, or ISIS, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange said last week. Speaking to the far-left Democracy Now program, Assange highlighted the fact that Clinton played a key role in funneling weaponry from Libya, which she helped destroy alongside jihadist allies on the ground, to Obama-backed terror groups in Syria.
Among the wealth of information found in the article was a reference to a a 2012 U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency document secured by non-profit watchdog Judicial Watch, which provided proof that the Obama administration has known all along that al-Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood were the “major forces driving the insurgency in Syria.” Despite this knowledge, Obama and his allies “support[ed] the opposition” anyway — a massive violation of federal anti-terror laws, potentially even giving aid and comfort to America’s enemies.
Among the most damning statements found in this article:
The same document notes that the Obama administration and its allies backing the Islamic jihad against Assad in Syria were hoping to establish what the Pentagon report called a “declared or undeclared Salafist [fundamentalist Islam] principality in Eastern Syria.” Today, that principality is known as ISIS, ISIL, or the Islamic State.
This information merely substantiates many other reports made by The New American over the past couple of years indicating that the growth of ISIS is a direct result of the Obama administration’s support for the anti-Assad rebels fighting in Syria. Among the other articles documenting this development posted by The New American have been “U.S. Intel: Obama Coalition Supported Islamic State in Syria,” “ISIS: The Best Terror Threat U.S. Tax Money Can Buy,” and “Obama’s “Anti-ISIS” Coalition Built ISIS, Biden Admits.”
In his article about the root causes of the refugee crisis in Europe, former Representative Ron Paul blamed U.S. and European interventionist foreign policy for the destabilization of the Middle East that has created fertile ground for the birth and growth of ISIS. In that article Paul observed:
Thus we see the disgraced General David Petraeus in the news last week offering his solution to the problem in Syria: make an alliance with al-Qaeda against ISIS! Petraeus was head of the CIA when the US launched its covert regime-change policy in Syria, and he was in charge of the “surge” in Iraq that contributed to the creation of al-Qaeda and ISIS in Iraq and Syria. The idea that the US can salvage its disastrous Syria policy by making an alliance with al-Qaeda is horrific.
Paul said that the solution to Europe’s refugee problem is for America to stop meddling in the affairs of other countries. Considering the beneficial effect that U.S. support for the anti-Assad rebels had on the growth of ISIS, the cessation of meddling in the affairs of other countries might be a solution to the terrorism problem, as well.
Related articles:
WikiLeaks: E-mails Expose Clinton Gun-running to Terrorists
U.S. Intel: Obama Coalition Supported Islamic State in Syria
Sen. Rand Paul: Is Obama Administration Hiding Arms Trade to Jihadists?
ISIS: The Best Terror Threat U.S. Tax Money Can Buy
Obama’s “Anti-ISIS” Coalition Built ISIS, Biden Admits
