PrintTerrorist sympathizers lionize Chattanooga killer on Twitter
FBI DIrector James Comey recently accused Twitter of being the main recruiting weapon for Islamic State, calling the social media platform a "devil on their shoulder"::
“ISIL is reaching out, primarily through Twitter, to about 21,000 English-language followers,” Comey told the Senate Judiciary Committee, using an acronym for the extremist group. “It buzzes in their pocket … a device, almost a devil on their shoulder, all day long saying, ‘Kill, kill, kill, kill.’”Comey noted that the Islamic State’s recruitment techniques differ from al Qaeda’s, which invests more heavily in spectacular attacks against Western landmarks. The Islamic State’s message is “two-pronged: Come to the so-called caliphate … and if you can’t come, kill somebody where you are.”“I cannot see me stopping these indefinitely,” he added.
Over the last 48 hours, Twitter accounts aimed at recruiting extremists and supporting Islamic extremist terrorist attacks have hailed the alleged shooter a martyr and flooded the social media site with praise for the attack, which killed four U.S. Marines and one sailor.
While it is still unclear whether the alleged shooter, Mohammad Abdulazeez, was in contact with Islamic radicals overseas, dozens of Twitter accounts rushed to proclaim support for him, labeling him a "lion," and a courageous "mujahid," or holy warrior.
"May Allah accept the shahadah of our fervent brother Muhammad Yusuf Abdulazeez," one sympathizer tweeted. "The #Chattanooga Mujahid."
In Islam, the "Shahadah" refers to the "testimony" of its believers, or acts that bear witness to Allah being the one true god and to Muhammed as Allah's prophet.
Another tweet warned the hashtag #Killorbekilled and #Chattanooga and said "Actions breed retaliation nd (sic) we swear by Allah til death, we'll avenge all the Muslim blood spilt by the west."
Still another, tweeted: "He got shahadah:
1.) fight the worst kuffar on Earth – US Marines
2.) On Eid Day
3.) On a Friday
What a gud ending #ChattanoogaShooting."
Joyce Karam, the Washington bureau chief of Al-Hayat, a leading pan-Arab paper, tried to draw attention to a tweet in Arabic she found particularly offensive.
"This #ISIS support is quoting former AQ preacher Anwar Awlaki in praising #Chattanooga shooter. @twitter allows," she wrote Thursday night.
Counterterrorism groups have pointed to a late June call for attacks during Ramadan from the spokesman for the Islamic State, Muhammed al-Adnani on Twitter, as the latest example of how the Islamic State is weaponizing the popular social media site.
The Counter Extremism Project, a nonprofit formed to combat the threat from extremist ideologies, has an ongoing social media campaign using the hashtag #CEPDigitalDisruption to try to track, target and shut down hundreds of Twitter and Facebook accounts. It is currently monitoring the tweets praising the Thursday attack and trying to appeal to Twitter to take the most offensive or incendiary tweets down.
Both Twitter, Inc. (NYSE TWTR), and Facebook, Inc. (NASDAQ FB) are publicly traded companies so you would think that the SEC might have some input into taking down these hate-filled accounts.But the problem is that even if Twitter and Facebook remove the offensive pages, the jihadists simply open a new account and continue their messaging.
The FBI believes there are several hundred Americans who have been radicalized by IS-inspired social media. And that niumber is only going to grow. How many will act out their jihadist fantasies before we get serious about combatting this threat?
