WebProNews

Tag: Islamists

  • ISIS Threatens to Kill Jack Dorsey, Twitter Employees

    This weekend, someone writing on behalf of ISIS threatened Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey and all Twitter employees, calling on supporters to not “allow any one of the atheists to survive.”

    A post claiming to be in response to Twitter’s “campaign to delete accounts” specifically addresses Dorsey, who appears with superimposed crosshairs over his face.

    “You started this failed war,” the ISIS post says. “We told you from the beginning it’s not your war, but you didn’t get it and kept closing our accounts on Twitter, but we always come back,” reads the message. “But when our lions [brave men] come and take your breath, you will never come back to life.”

    It’s Twitter’s policy to suspend accounts that promote ISIS activity.

    The post calls on ISIS supporters across the world to target Twitter and its employees.

    “For the ‘individual jihadi’ all over the world, target the Twitter company and its interests in any place, people, and buildings, and don’t allow any one of the atheists to survive,” it says.

    “Our security team is investigating the veracity of these threats with relevant law enforcement officials,” a Twitter spokesperson told BuzzFeed.

    This isn’t the first time Twitter employees have been targeted by ISIS. CEO Dick Costolo revealed last year that he and other employees had received death threats.

  • Newsweek Twitter Account Hacked, Posts Obama Threats

    Newsweek is the latest major publication to fall victim to a Twitter hack. It appears that a group calling itself Cyber Caliphate took over the magazine’s account around 11am EST, and began tweeting out threats, supposed leaked documents, and general propaganda relating to Islamic terrorism.

    “#CyberCaliphate Bloody Valentine’s Day #MichelleObama! We’re watching you, you girls, and your husband,” read one tweet.

    The hackers also published a purported organizational chart from the DCITA, or the Defense Cyber Investigations Training Academy.

    Twitter shut this one down pretty fast, and the tweets have since been deleted. But Newsweek has yet to fully restore the page:

    Image via Twitter, CNBC screenshot

  • Islamists Continue Worldwide Offensive

    As the news spread of coordinated U.S. Navy SEAL strikes against Islamist leaders on either side of the African mainland, Islamists elsewhere were launching attacks of their own.

    Iraq was rocked by a series of suicide bombings this weekend, Reuters reports. One bombing involved a truck loaded with explosives that was driven into a primary school playground in the northern region; in that attack, 14 children and the school headmaster perished.

    An additional Saturday bombing targeted a group of Shi’ite pilgrims visiting a Baghdad religious site, killing 14 and wounding over 30 others.

    No public claims of responsibility have been made for any of the recent attacks, although the tactics utilized cause local police to suspect Sunni-affiliated terrorists tied to al-Qaeda. The primary school bombing occurred mere minutes after a reported attack on a Tel Afar police station just 45 miles northwest of Mosul city, a known Islamist stronghold. In the police station attack, no injuries were reported. A Tel Afar city official who spoke on the condition of anonymity commented that “The fingerprints of al Qaeda are clear on both attacks.”

    Meanwhile, deep in the Nigeria’s Borno state, the Islamists of the Boko Haram rebel group killed at least 20 when they assaulted the town of Damboa early Saturday morning. Five were executed at a mosque as they said their morning prayers.

    In a statement given to Reuters, Nigerian military spokesman Captain Aliyu Danja said, “While they [the Islamists] were unleashing their mayhem, troops [with the Nigerian military] engaged the terrorists, killing 15 in the process while others fled.”

    The military’s casualty counts for engagements with militant Islamists are frequently exaggerated and often unverifiable. Nigerian military forces have been waging an offensive against the Boko Haram rebels since May, but it remains the biggest security threat to the country. Traditionally known for targeting security forces as well as Christian and Muslim opponents, Boko Haram has recently conducted roadside massacres, and threatened Western schools considered sacrilegious.

    [Image via an AFP news report on YouTube about the Boko Haram Islamist faction]

  • Egyptian Court: Muslim Brotherhood is Banned

    USA Today reported this morning that an Egyptian Court has banned the Muslim Brotherhood as a political organization and as a community organization. Authorities will be expected to seize all of its assets in an upcoming crackdown against Islamists in Egypt.

    The language of the court is clear: “any institution branching out of it [The Muslim Brotherhood] or … receiving financial support from it” is banned along with it, and the judge called for “confiscation of all the group’s money, assets, and buildings” accompanied by an independent committee to manage the money and assets seized until final court orders are released.

    Although the Muslim Brotherhood has been a prominent political force in Egypt, it was only recently made a legal political party in 2011 when President Hosni Mubarak was ousted in the Arab Spring revolution. Until then, it was an outlawed organization.

    The courts now rely on authorities to dismantle the Muslim Brotherhood’s intricate social networks. The Islamist group had constructed a networked series of grassroots supporters and community activists, not unlike a real presidential campaign.

    The differences may not even be all that striking; the court’s ruling came about because the leftist opposition Tagammu party labeled the Muslim Brotherhood as “terrorists” who “exploit religion [for] political slogans.”

    The group’s reaction, as reported by the AP, came from leading member Ibrahim Moneir in an interview with Al-Jazeera Mubashir Misr TV: “This is totalitarian decision! You are losers and it [The Muslim Brotherhood] will remain with God’s help, not by the orders by the judiciary of el-Sissi [the general who overthrew Morsi].”

    Haaretz speculated that the court’s decision will have a double-edged result: that while the Muslim Brotherhood may disappear from the mainstream political discourse in Egypt, they may return to encouraging impressionable young people to wage guerrilla war against the state.

    [Image via a YouTube video about Egypt’s interim president calling for the ban]