Federal police in Brazil have ordered the detention of 12 people who allegedly pledged allegiance to the Islamic State group via social media.

Justice Minister Alexandre de Moraes told journalists in Brasilia on Thursday that 10 had been arrested and two more were being sought.

Moraes says police acted because the group had been discussing the use of weapons and guerrilla tactics to potentially launch an attack during the Olympics, which begin August 5th.

The arrests were made in the southern states of Sao Paulo and Parana. Moraes says there were no specific targets for attack.

After the horror in Nice, perhaps the most depressing comment came from France’s prime minister. Calling for unity in the face of terror, Manuel Valls observed, “Times have changed, and we should learn to live with terrorism. We have to show solidarity and collective calm.”

If this sounds like resignation, it shouldn’t. Valls is no squish. After the Charlie Hebdo attack in January 2015, he told the Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg that accusations of “Islamophobia” were too often used to silence legitimate criticism of political Islam.

What’s more, France has been under a state of emergency since November, when Islamic State group operatives went on a murder spree in Paris. In practice this has meant the state has monitored the communications of thousands of young Muslims, searched their homes and businesses without a warrant and used its national army to defend soft targets.

Then there is the broader war in Syria and Iraq. The French are only one nation participating in the campaign against the Islamic State group’s self-proclaimed caliphate. In recent months this effort has seen some success. Just this week coalition air strikes appear to have killed the Islamic State group’s minister of war, Omar Shishani. Last month, coalition forces liberated Fallujah in Iraq.

And yet none of this was able to stop a petty criminal named Mohamed Lahouaiej-Bouhlel from driving a truck into a crowd of people celebrating Bastille Day. Some of this is because of the nature of jihad these days. Both al-Qaida and the Islamic State group have encouraged smaller-scale attacks in the West that can be executed without planning or coordination from a wider network. While no group has yet claimed responsibility for the attack in Nice, and the authorities are still investigating the killer’s motivations, the Islamic State group in particular has encouraged its supporters and sympathizers to conduct this kind of mass murder.

As the New York Times’ Rukmini Callimachi reported in March, the Islamic State group still encourages larger-scale attacks, but as the French security blog Kurultay concluded, they also encourage “isolated actions of self-radicalized people, who have absolutely no direct contact with ISIS, and yet who will consciously act in its name.”

This approach is not an accident. Michael Smith II, the chief operating officer for Kronos Advisory, which monitors the Islamic State group online, told me that this is a major emphasis of the Islamic State group today.

“Their leader has explicitly stated ‘you are compelled to pledge allegiance to me and this allegiance is affirmed with action, not just words,’” he said. This means one of two things, Smith said: Either emigrate to the new caliphate and fight in the Middle East, or wage jihad in your home country.

That’s just the Islamic State group. The same kind of inspired terrorism has become a trend for other groups as well. Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula began to foment these kinds of attacks in July 2010 when it began to publish its English-language online magazine, Inspire. Since last fall, in what some have called “the stabbing intifadah,” Israelis have been menaced by a wave of Palestinians wielding knives and guns and ramming vehicles into civilians.

Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and an expert on radical Islam, told me that all of this highlights that military gains against the Islamic State group do not diminish the broader threat of jihad. “The ISIS self-professed caliphate is collapsing,” he said. “This is going to really hurt the organization, but jihadism itself continues to gain power. It’s a much bigger problem than just ISIS.”

That problem is not going to go away, even as the military campaign against the Islamic State group begins to succeed. The war on terror will be with us for the foreseeable future, and so will the war the terrorists wage against us.

koreaherald.com

All of France was out to celebrate last night. July 14 is Bastille Day, the country’s national holiday. Across France—as on our July 4—friends and families congregate, enjoy a day off work and, once darkness descends, watch fireworks in a celebratory atmosphere.

That happy ritual was shattered last night in Nice, the capital of the fashionable French Riviera, where thousands of locals and visitors were gathered on the Mediterranean seaside. As 11 o’clock approached, with festive crowds thronged on the Promenade des Anglais, the chichi waterside avenue overlooked by hotels, the dwindling fireworks show was interrupted by panic, then horror.

A white cargo truck appeared, aimed at partygoers. It drove methodically along the storied street, Le Prom as locals call it, zig-zagging to take out the maximum number of people. Most of those hit by the truck had no chance to escape. The scene, recalled survivors, was “like bowling”—with innocents crushed by the huge vehicle.

“It was a cool evening,” recalled a journalist who witnessed the rampage unfold, watching in horror as the truck rammed through dense columns of partygoers. At first he thought the approaching noise was coming from people setting off their own fireworks, only realizing, as the truck approached him, what was happening: “a huge white truck was traveling at breakneck speed… moving to mow down a maximum number of people.”

The mobile rampage went on for over a mile, taking out victims along the way, until the police managed to stop the rampage. The attacker planned to go down fighting. Finally, a shoot-out ensued, leaving the driver dead.

So far 84 innocents are known to be dead, with dozens more injured—18 of them critically. There were so many bodies on the street, many of them horribly mangled, that seaside restaurants brought out tablecloths to cover them. The dead include young and old, among them several children. Muslims were murdered too, as was the number-two border police official in Nice.

This is France’s third mass-casualty terrorist attack in the past 18 months. The customary ritual has commenced, with sorrowful denunciations of the carnage from all corners of the world. The great and the good express their shock and horror, while the dead remain dead.

In truth, there is nothing especially shocking about the massacre in Nice, except that the terrorist used a truck rather than bombs to make his point. So far, French authorities are saying the killer, who seems to have acted alone, was a 31-year-old man of Tunisian origin living in Nice. His identity has been firmly established but his name has not yet been released to the public. He is said to be known to the police but not to security services.

That fact—which should be regarded as tentative at this point—seems to minimize the chance that this was any sort of directed operation by the Islamic State or any such jihadist group. Nevertheless, French authorities have not shied away from calling the Nice massacre terrorism.

Mustering a verbal courage that eludes Barack Obama, French President François Hollande stated in response to last night’s carnage, “All of France is under the threat of Islamic terrorism.” This truth is so obvious that it requires extensive mental gymnastics to avoid, as the current occupant of the White House somehow manages again and again.

In response to last November’s Parisian carnage that left 130 dead, President Hollande implemented a state of emergency that finally dropped the hammer on jihadists in the country, granting the police exceptional powers to combat terrorism. That state of emergency was slated to close by the end of this month, but last night’s attack has moved Paris to extend it for another three months.

That will help give French police and intelligence services a chance to unravel exactly what happened in Nice and why. The truck was rented several days ago, indicating some planning was involved, but beyond that little is yet known about this terrorist plot.

Of course, there’s nothing new about using vehicles as terror weapons. On December 21, 2014, a man ran over 11 pedestrians in the French city of Dijon, injuring two of them seriously, while shouting “Allahu akbar” (“God is great,” the standard jihadist mantra). The very next day, in Nantes, on the other side of France, another man ran over ten pedestrians, killing one of them—he, too, shouted “Allahu akbar” during his vehicular killing spree. Reports that last night’s Nice mass murderer likewise shouted “Allau akbar” before being felled by police bullets therefore ought not surprise.

The Islamic State has repeatedly called on its fans and followers in the West to use any means at their disposal, including vehicles, to murder “infidels.” In a recentvideo, ISIS encouraged wannabe jihadists in France who were unable to come to the Middle East to use cars and trucks in domestic attacks instead.

French security services have repeatedly warned of such terrorist innovations. Patrick Calvar, the head of French domestic intelligence, previously predicted that jihadists at home are improvising and moving beyond traditional means of attack: “I am confident that they will pass the stage of car bombs and explosive devices,” he cautioned.

The more terrorists choose soft targets, the more difficult it becomes to stop them. And it’s difficult to imagine a softer target than public holidays, with their throngs of people. In response to the atrocity, President Hollande has deployed armed soldiers on the streets of Nice and even called up reserves to provide enough manpower. Paris has promised that all its security agencies are cooperating and working overtime to prevent the next attack.

Yet there surely will be another terrorist attack. France, like much of Europe, now possesses a domestic jihadist problem so vast that mere intelligence work cannot stop every outrage. The security services in France are among the best in Europe, but no spies and cops, however competent, can be expected to deter every would-be jihadist.

This is Europe’s new reality. Small wonder, as I explained this week, that some Europeans seem to want nothing to do with Islam at all anymore. As France buries its dead and condolences are counted, it’s time to start thinking seriously about real, long-term solutions to this wicked problem.

observer.com/

Top U.S. counterterror and law enforcement officials are offering grim warnings about what awaits once the Islamic State terror group’s self-declared caliphate ultimately collapses.

Much of the U.S. and coalition strategy against IS has been predicated on the idea that without the ability to hold territory in Iraq and Syria, the terror group will falter, unable to make good on its promise of a utopian society.

Yet as the fall of the IS caliphate looks to draw nearer, U.S. officials are increasingly cautious, saying the group will remain a dynamic and formidable threat for some time to come.

“We all know there will be a terrorist diaspora out of the caliphate,” FBI Director James Comey told the House Homeland Security Committee on Thursday.

“Those thousands of fighters are going to go someplace,” he said. “Our job is to spot them and stop them before they come to the United States to harm innocent people.”

As many as 40,000 foreign fighters from more than 120 countries are believed to have flocked to the conflict in Syria, with a majority of them joining IS while the group grew and saw its fortunes rise as it advanced across Iraq.

Now, Comey and others worry the terror group is in a prime position to take advantage of the flow home.

“ISIL’s external operations has been building and entrenching during the past two years,” according to National Counterterrorism Center Director Nicholas Rasmussen. ISIL is an acronym for Islamic State.

“We don’t think that battlefield reverses alone in Iraq will be sufficient to degrade that terrorism capability,” he said. “Over time we will degrade their capability … but there may be a significant lag.”

Forged documents

Adding to the concerns is the terror group’s use of forged documents to get its operatives into Europe, where some became key players in the terror attacks that rocked Paris and Brussels.

“We know it’s a part of ISIL’s tradecraft,” Comey said.

U.S. Homeland Security officials say they have bolstered the department’s abilities to detect fraudulent travel documents, though the risk remains that an IS operative could find a way to sneak into the U.S.

Concerns also persist about the challenges facing some U.S. allies, especially in Europe where, despite ongoing crackdowns, intelligence officials fear IS has become “deeply rooted,” using perhaps hundreds of jihadists who returned from Syria and Iraq to mold thousands of would-be foreign fighters into guerilla units.

“The Europeans have made progress since the horrific attacks in Paris and Belgium, but clearly more progress has to be made,” CIA Director John Brennan said Wednesday during an appearance at the Brookings Institution.

“Some of the countries themselves, their internal and external services, will not talk with one another; they’re not knitted together,” he said.

Just getting intelligence on IS is proving to be problematic.

“ISIL is a savvy, experienced adversary that knows how we collect intelligence,” Rasmussen said Thursday. “I would describe our efforts to gain an understanding of ISIL intentions and strategy and direction as being a harder target right now than what we faced with al-Qaida.”

Social media

One area where officials say they have made good progress is in efforts to prevent U.S. citizens from traveling to join IS. But even there, concerns persist as officials worry some may be heeding the terror group’s call to stay home and find ways to carry out attacks where they live.

The threat of attacks inspired by IS messaging on social media is also increasing.

FBI officials have said they are currently investigating about 1,000 such cases, but face difficulties as many of the would-be terrorists are not actively communicating with other sympathizers or operatives.

“The prospect of homegrown violent extremism — another San Bernardino, another Orlando — is number one on my list,” Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson told lawmakers Thursday when asked what keeps him up at night.

“We are not winning the war against Islamist terror,” House Homeland Chair Rep. Michael McCaul said Thursday.

“Each day we stick with half measures, ISIS is able to dig in further and advance a murderous agenda,” he said, using another acronym for the terror group. “Overall they are not on the run, they are on the rise.”

voanews.com

A news agency affiliated with the so-called Islamic State militant group has confirmed the death of the group’s “minister of war,” Tarkhan Batirashvili – known by nom de guerre Omar Al-Shishani, or Omar the Chechen – saying the key leader had been killed in combat in the Iraqi town of Shirqat, south of Mosul.

The report, published on the website of the Amaq news agency the Islamic State fighters frequently use for announcements, conflicts with a March claim from the Pentagon that Mr. Al-Shishani had died in a US airstrike in Syria. Neither the United States nor IS have provided further details as to when his death may have occurred.

Appearing unmasked and red-bearded in propaganda videos, Al-Shishani was one of the group’s most distinctive faces, and perhaps one of its most important recruitment tools – particularly for non-Arab Muslims attracted to his image as a prototypically fierce Chechnyan fighter. Rumors of his death frequently swirled around him. And for the US, he was one of the most wanted jihadist figures, a fact that no doubt increased his stature among supporters. In 2014, the State Department placed him on a list of “specially designated global terrorists” subject to financial sanctions, and a year later they announced a bounty of $5 million for information.

Amaq’s report of Al-Shishani’s death comes as American officials say an influx of US troops on the ground and stepped-up air strikes has swung momentum in the military campaign against ISIS in favor of the US. By some estimates, as many as 6,000 American troops will be present in Iraq once the Pentagon deploys 560 additional troops in coming days.

And as IS loses territory, it could threaten the cohesion of its leadership, says William McCants, a scholar of militant Islamism and senior fellow at the Brookings Institution’s Center for Middle East Policy.

“There’s been a steady drumbeat of senior ISIS leaders killed over the past few months, which means the [US-led] coalition’s intelligence is getting better and better,” Dr. McCants told The Christian Science Monitor in an email. “That’s going to increase paranoia among the senior leaders that remain and increase the likelihood of infighting and factionalism.”

It might also mean that IS is rethinking its strategy. On Tuesday, The Washington Post reported that the group had begun to prepare for the loss of its territorial sanctuary, with one longtime operative telling the Post that members were advising potential recruits to launch terror attacks at home rather than journeying to Iraq or Syria.

“You’re not an ‘Islamic state’ if you don’t control territory,” says David Schenker, a former Pentagon official and current director of the Program on Arab Politics at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

In an interview with the Christian Science Monitor, Mr. Schenker says the recent spate of ISIS-affiliated massacres in Bangladesh, Baghdad, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey were emblematic of the group’s retreat from territory. “They’re putting emphasis on other locales and going after the West, outside of their core and outside their state.”

The death of Al-Shishani, adds Mr. Schenker, was a “highly symbolic” loss.

“He was a poster child for the Islamic State,” he says.

Born in 1986 to a Kist Chechnyan mother, Al-Shishani grew up in a village in eastern Georgia, close to the Chechnyan border. After graduating from high school, he joined the Georgian Intelligence Service, working behind enemy lines during the short-lived 2008 war with Russia, according to a 2015 profile by the Intercept. But he was dismissed from his unit following a bout of tuberculosis, and not long after his return to his village of Pankisi, he was sentenced to two years in prison for weapons smuggling.

That time in prison transformed him, partly through contact with a Saudi inmate who had a thick Rolodex of contacts among global jihadists, and upon his release in 2012, Al-Shishani left Georgia to join the fight against the Syrian government. In September of that year, the Guardian described him as the leader of a unit of foreign jihadists. That unit would later pledge allegiance to the Islamic State’s top leader, Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi, and by mid-2014, Al-Shishani had ascended to the senior command in that group.

His leadership in operations that captured Iraq’s Anbar province and parts of eastern Syria are said to have helped Al-Baghdadi declare his caliphate in June 2014.

The timing of the announcement may reflect murky deliberations on the part of IS’s press wing. In confirming the Pentagon’s March report of Al-Shishani’s death, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights spoke with his doctor, the Guardian noted on Wednesday.

csmonitor.com

A former U.S. intelligence director revealed recently that laptops seized from ISIS terrorists are 80 percent full of pornography.

Lieutenant General Michael Flynn, who was considered for Donald Trump’s running mate at one point, told the German Newspaper Bild, “We looked a ruthless enemy in the eye — women and children, girls and boys, raped and exploited, the beheadings stored on a laptop next to pornography,” he said.

He explained, “At one point we actually had determined that the material on the laptops was up to 80 per cent pornography, especially gay. These sick, psychopathic enemies were not only unimaginably hideous, but also treacherous and torn. We had to work faster to outwit them if we wanted to beat them.”

The revelation is not necessarily new. The Daily Mail notes that U.S. officials found porn during the U.S. Navy Seals mission to kill Osama bin Laden. Additionally, 9/11 9/11 terrorists went to strip clubs, paid for lap dances, and for hookers in motel rooms in Boston, Las Vegas and Florida prior the attacks.

dailycaller.com/

Classified data exclusively obtained by NBC News shows that the number of foreigners fighting for ISIS in Syria and Iraq has dropped by half in the past year, but those fighters who have returned to their native countries — or have never left home — are now launching attacks across the globe.

Earlier this month, ISIS fighters killed hundreds with attacks in Saudi Arabia, Bangladesh and Baghdad. In late June a suicide attack killed 45 people at Turkey’s main international airport.

The data, which comes from a secret intelligence report recently sent to the White House, indicates that the number of foreigners fighting for the Islamic Caliphate in Syria and Iraq is now 12,000, about half what it was in early 2015.

Western countries have made it harder for their citizens to travel to the region and join the terror group. But some ISIS sympathizers are staying in their home countries and conducting operations there. And a stunning 30 percent of those who have fought in the war zone have now returned to their home countries — at a rate of 3000 ISIS adherents per month.

Terror expert Malcolm Nance told NBC’s Cynthia McFadden that we have entered a new phase in the war against ISIS, as the terror groups responds to its loss of territory in Syria and Iraq and depletion of troop strength by spreading the war to other countries.

“The effect that’s going to happen now is like stepping on a ball of mercury,” explained Nance, head of the Terror Asymmetrics Project and a former U.S. intelligence analyst. “You step on a ball of mercury, all the pieces break up and spread around the world.”

Even so, some 500 new Western nationals travel to Iraq and Syria to fight for ISIS every month.

Based on the classified data obtained by NBC News, which does not count individuals who have died on the battlefield or returned to their home countries, 145 people from the U.S. are currently estimated to be fighting in Iraq and Syria. Despite crackdowns by European governments, 1200 French nationals are still fighting for ISIS inside the caliphate, along with 335 people from the U.K.

By far the largest number of Westerners, however, comes from Russia. Russia and other former Soviet states account for more than 2,400 current ISIS fighters in Iraq and Syria, according to the data — a number that has doubled in the past year. Two times that number may have made it to the caliphate, but since many, like the Chechens, are experienced fighters, they’ve been sent straight to the front lines. Their death rate is “staggeringly high,” said one senior intelligence official.

The bombers who killed 45 people at the Istanbul airport on June 28 were ISIS fighters originally from Russia’s Caucasus region.

The jihadis who took hostages at a Dhaka, Bangladesh bakery, however, were attacking close to home. All six, according to the Bangladeshi government, were Bangladeshi citizens.

“Many, many more foreigners,” said Nance, “have the ability to go home and perhaps create the circumstances for a new 9/11.”

The military pressure on the physical caliphate in Iraq and Syria, said Nance, means ISIS has to take its battle elsewhere. Said Nance, “We are creating, essentially, a ghost caliphate.”

nbcnews.com

A terror attack targeting the French delegation at the Rio 2016Olympics has been foiled by security services, it has emerged.

French military intelligence was alerted to the alleged plot by a Brazilian national by “partners”, according to a report into the Paris terror attacks in January and November, which killed 147.

No other details about the plans were released and the information was not shared with Brazil’s intelligence agency Abin.

“We were not the source of information and the Brazilian intelligence agency (Abin) was not officially informed either of this matter,” a spokesman told AFP.

The French inquiry report was published as security services in Rio de Janeiro prepared to stage a simulated attack this weekend to test counter-terrorism response plans.

Some 500 officers, troops and first responders will be involved in the exercise at Deodoro station near one of the venue clusters in the north of the city on SaturdayJULY16.

Earlier this month, Alexandre Moraes, justice minister, said a terror attack during the Olympics was a “possibility” but not a “probability”.

This week, a man from Pakistan was arrested on suspicion of planning an attack on an airport in the capital, Brasília, but he was realised after federal police officers found no evidence of a plot.

According to reports, he had been reported by his Brazilian wife in what appeared to be a domestic dispute.

In the meantime, Brazil’s ministry of defence confirmed it was boosting military presence in the host city at the request of acting governor Francisco Dornelles.

The number of troops deployed in Rio for the Games rose from 18,000 to 21,000, reaching a total of 41,000 including those in the five football host cities.

The total number of security personnel including police will be more than 85,000 – more than double the number for London 2012.

“If necessary, we will deploy more,” said Raul Jungmann, defence minister. “There will be no lack of security in Rio de Janeiro.”

From July 15 there will be 6,000 soldiers on the streets of Rio with the defence operation officially beginning when the Athletes’ Village opens on July 24. It will include 12 ships, 70 armoured vehicles, and 28 helicopters.

Intelligence officers from the UK, US, Spain, Belgium, France, Argentina and Paraguay will also support Brazilian agencies at an Integrated Anti-Terror Centre in Rio while there will also be other centres set up in football host cities and in the capital.

“In all areas, spheres and predetermined places inside and outside the arenas we will have a defence, security and intelligence scheme that will meet all the requirements of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), ensuring security and peace in the hosting of these Games,” Mr Jungmann added.

telegraph.co.uk

Islamic State terror leaders reportedly are preparing for the fall of its so-called caliphate after the US-led coalition and Russian-backed forces made significant gains in recent months in Iraq and Syria.

The Washington Post reported Tuesday that the terror group’s leaders in Syria are bracing for its strongholds to fall, but vow to continue its wave of terror attacks abroad. US counterterrorism experts believe the recent large-scale attacks in Istanbul and Baghdad are a sign that its reign in the Middle East is dwindling.

Experts still believe that even if the terrorists affiliated with ISIS start to move underground, the group will still remain dangerous abroad.

“Where al Qaeda was hierarchical and somewhat controlled, these guys are not. They have all the energy and unpredictability of a populist movement,” retired Air Force Gen. Michael Hayden told the Washington Post.

ISIS officials still believe that its vision of a “caliphate” across the Middle East is still viable despite its losses across the region it claims. One also insisted that the group had “shifted some of our command, media and wealth structure to different countries.”

Officials in the terror group issued a grim statement to its fighters that soon all could be lost. The Washington Post reported that an editorial in ISIS’ weekly Arabic newsletter acknowledged that its territory could be lost after just two years.

In the editorial, the group insists that the Islamic State will survive even if its foes take all of its territory. However, US- and Russian-backed forces would have to wait for victory, “until an entire generation of Muslims that witnesses the establishment of the Islamic State and the return of the caliphate … is wiped out.”

“They don’t want to lose territory,” Cole Bunzel, a doctoral candidate at Princeton University’s Near Eastern studies department who translated ISIS’ editorial on the future of the caliphate, told the Washington Post. “But they’re trying to remind people that the group has a long history and they’re going to persist, just as they did in earlier times.”

Will McCants, a Brookings Institution researcher who also detailed the history of ISIS in a 2015 book, believes that the Istanbul attack and the Baghdad attack on a café are just reassurances to its followers of how volatile it could still be despite losing its territory.

However, top ISIS leaders failed to place the blame on any of its battlefield missteps. ISIS spokesman Abu Muhammad al-Adnani has admitted that the group had made errors in its losses, McCants said.

According to the Washington Post, an ISIS operative spoke to a Western journalist and told the reporter that some of the militants had become disillusioned because of commanders’ mistakes. However, he added that once Raqqa falls, it would be avenged.

“There is a message to all members of the coalition against us: We will not forget, and we will come into your countries and hit you,” he said, “one way or the other.”

As for the next step, Islamic State leaders haven’t specified, but European officials believe it’s already under way.

“They are … challenged as we adapt our strategy to their initial one, in order to start ‘de-sanctuarizing’ them,” a French security official told the Washington Post. “But they will now expand to other tactics and start executing much more insidious and covert ops, in big cities. The next step has begun.”

nypost.com

The Islamic State militant group (ISIS) disseminated a new hit list of American targets earlier this month, including churchgoers and Jewish worshippers, forcing the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to brief religious leaders.

The list, discovered by jihadi monitoring service SITE Intelligence, was published on July 3 among ISIS sympathizers in online forums.

The targets, comprising 1,700 people, has caused concern among the American Jewish community. The security wing of the U.S. Jewish community, the Secure Community Network (SCN) hosted a conference call after its publication between 200 Jewish community leaders and Homeland Security officials.

“The lists appear to be directed toward ‘lone wolf’ ISIL supporters who may be inspired to carry out attacks,” SCN said in a statement, using another acronym for ISIS. “However, there have been no reported incidents to date in which an ISIL-inspired individual has carried out an attack on any individual appearing on these lists.”

In recent months, the group has released a series of hit lists intended to spread fear among the U.S. population. In May, ISIS’s cyber-wing dumped the details of 3,000 New Yorkers, mostly from Brooklyn, forcing the NYPD and FBI to inform all of those included on the list.

It then released the names of 800 members of the Arkansas Library Association, another apparently low-level target whose personal data the group was able to breach and circulate.

Alongside the releases, the group usually publishes orders aimed at lone wolves, rather than organized cells, to target those identified, categorizing any Americans as “crusaders.” The FBI had previously said that making contact with those included on such lists was a routine procedure “in order to sensitize potential victims to the observed threat.”

The inclusion of churchgoers and members of synagogues is not surprising given the radical Islamist group’s treatment of religious minorities in the Middle East, where it has forced thousands of Christians to flee their hometowns, such as Mosul and Raqqa, and enslaved thousands of women, men and children from the Yazidi sect, who it views as devil worshippers.

While obtaining data, for example addresses, phone numbers and names, from such public bodies is a relatively unchallenging task for hackers, the group has also released the details of Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, Director of the CIA John Brennan and even a possible future President of the United States, Hillary Clinton, as well as other military, governmental and diplomatic personnel.

newsweek.com