ISIS Wants Twitter Employees Dead
Employees of social media platform Twitter are in danger of being assassinated by members of an ISIS-affiliated group. The radical militants were angered when Twitter employees closed down their accounts.
The terror group called on its "lone wolves" in the U.S. and Europe to focus their attacks on Twitter employees.
A Twitter handle identified as @dawlamoon reportedly issued the calls on Sunday night in a series of tweets.
"#The_Concept_of_Lone_Wolf_Attacks The time has arrived to respond to Twitter's management by directly attacking their employees and physically assassinating them!! Those who will carry this out are the sleepers cells of death."
"#The_Concept_of_Lone_Wolf_Attacks Twitter management should know that if they do not stop their campaign in the virtual world, we will the bring the war to them in the real world on the ground."
Apparently, the ceaseless fight with Twitter's internal police has become a major source of frustration for the ISIS.
@dawlamoon further warned that Twitter employees based in San Francisco should always watch out because an assassin is out there, ready to pounce any time. His tweets are as follows:
"On his doorstep there might be a lone wolf assassin waiting."
Apart from beheading hostages in Syria, "#Attacking_Twitter_Employees is on the agenda of mujahedeen and lone wolves who are across Europe."
"Our security team is investigating the veracity of these threats with relevant law enforcement officials," a Twitter representative told Fast Company.
According to Vocativ, @dawlamoon represents Al Nusra Al Maqdisia -- a Jerusalem-based group. "The group and its accounts are well-known and frequently referenced in online ISIS forums."
Twitter had since suspended the @dawlamoon account at 2 p.m. Eastern time on Monday, but not after the threats to Twitter staff had been posted.
Vocativ said the techniques the ISIS members employ "are simple but effective; opening new accounts by subtly changing names, usernames, passwords and pictures of suspended accounts, using numerals to replace letters and changing one character to create a similar username."
It also noted that ISIS followers are regularly reminded on how to avoid account suspensions.
The attack on Twitter employees becomes the first manifestation of an ISIS escalation outside of Syria and Iraq.
Twitter has 12 bureaus in the US, including the headquarters. It has five in Europe.
Two bureaus are in Latin America, three in Asia, one in Australia and two in Canada.