Supporters of terror group Daesh, formerly referred to as ISIS, IS or ISIL, hacked into the US Central Command’s Twitter and YouTube accounts this morning, posting taunts and threats to soldiers, their wives and children.
The hackers said their so-called CyberCaliphate [online Islamic state] was “already here, we are in your PCs, in each military base” and posted some internal military documents and photographs of personnel online.
“American soldiers, we are coming, watch your back,” said another message. “…We know everything about you, your wives and children.”
On discovering the breach, the Pentagon suspended the Twitter and YouTube accounts of Centcom, which is responsible for overseeing American-led air attacks on Daesh in Iraq and Syria. It said no classified or sensitive material had been taken.
The group that hijacked the site replaced Centcom’s Twitter photo with a portrait of a scarfed head and added slogans like “i love you isis” and said their actions were part of a CyberJihad.
The Twitter and YouTube accounts of the US military command have been suspended after being hacked by Daesh.
On the YouTube page, meanwhile, they uploaded a popular Daesh propaganda and recruitment video that promotes the continuation of war and the humiliation of Jewish rabbis.
The breach, which experts believe is annoying rather than a major security issue, came as US President Barack Obama delivered a speech on cybersecurity.
On Centcom’s Twitter account, the hackers wrote, “While the US and its satellites kill our brothers in Syira, Iraq and Afghanistan we broke into your networks and personal devices and know everything about you.”
“You’ll see no mercy infidels. ISIS is already here, we are in your PCs, in each military base. With Allah’s permission we are in CENTCOM now.
“We won’t stop! We know everything about you, your wives and children. US soldiers! We’re watching you!”
They also posted images of US military personnel and a link to alleged “confidential data from your mobile devices”.
However, the BBC’s defence correspondent Jonathan Marcus described the material posted as “an amateurish and unconvincing attempt to publicise ‘secrets'”.
“Most of the information is hardly secret at all,” he said, rather the kind of material that can be accessed on the websites of US think-tanks.
What is ‘Daesh’?
In recent weeks, Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott has said he will use the term ‘Daesh’ now instead of ‘Isil death cult’ when referring to the Islamic State terrorist organisation.
Australia’s allies in the Middle East have reportedly encouraged the move saying that the terrorist group reportedly loathe the moniker Daesh – which is also an acronym, but of the Arabic words that mean the same thing as ISIS: Al Dawla al-Islamyia fil Iraq wa’al Sham.
Pronounced Da’ish – with a long emphasis on the long “e” – Mr Abbott aims to further neuter the term by mispronouncing it “Dash”.
“Daesh hates being referred to by this term, and what they don’t like has an instinctive appeal to me,” the Australian prime minister told the Herald Sun.
“I absolutely refuse to refer to it by the title that it claims for itself [Islamic State], because I think this is a perversion of religion and a travesty of governance.”
Joseph Bahout, a visiting scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, told The Huffington Post that the word Daesh in Arabic “sounds like something monstrous” and is a way of “stigmatising” the organisiation.
The terror group’s leaders have threatened to “cut out the tongues” of those who refer to them as Daesh or DAIISH, according to international media reports.
In a move that is aimed at legitimising the group and removing the word “Islamic” from their title French president, François Hollande, is also pushing the use of Daesh when referring to the group.
