Islamic State defector brings 'goldmine' of details on 22,000 supporters

[Blue_Tires]

This discussion thread was locked as off-topic by BooScout (a host of the Latest Breaking News forum).

Source: Reuters

LONDON (Reuters) - A disillusioned former member of Islamic State has passed a stolen memory stick of documents identifying 22,000 supporters in over 50 countries to a British journalist, a leak that could help the West target Islamist fighters planning attacks.

Leaks of such detailed information about Islamic State are rare and give Britain's spies a potential trove of data that could help unmask militants who have threatened more attacks like those that killed 130 people in Paris last November.

A man calling himself Abu Hamed, a former member of Islamic State who became disillusioned with its leaders, passed the files to Britain's Sky News on a memory stick he said he had stolen from the head of the group's internal security force.

On it were enrolment forms containing the names of Islamic State supporters and of their relatives, telephone numbers, and other details such as the subjects' areas of expertise and who had recommended them.

One of the files, marked "Martyrs", detailed a group of IS members who were willing and trained to carry out suicide attacks, Sky said.

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/tv-channel-says-obtains-details-22-000-islamic-082041671.html?nf=1#

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Reverse-Snowden....

(assuming of course his cache of info is legit)

[leftynyc]

1. Prayers for keeping this

courageous man safe.

[840high]

3. Yes.

[virtualobserver]

2. why would this be reported?

sounds like something that you would want to keep quiet, unless it is bullshit designed to create fear in operatives worldwide.

[leftynyc]

5. To cause dissension in the ranks

hoping they'll start turning on each other. When people get paranoid, they make mistakes.

[ChairmanAgnostic]

4. a few problems with this.

1. The biggest problem, WHY MAKE THIS PUBLIC? I am sure that out of those 22,000, at least a few are computer literate, english speaking, and follow the news religiously. Now they have a head's up that they will be dead center within a pretty rigorous search and interrogate process. Sky News should have at least waited until the authorities weighed in.

2. How can we tell that it is accurate? Disinformation is as powerful and information. Giving us 22,000, of which all the real members are dead or in Iraq, while the vast majority were simply picked out of a phone book, or gathered from ISIS members who have axes to grind against family/friends/former bosses/ex-girlfriends or boyfriends/ and much more. This could be an effort to daze and confused us, to distract us while other events are underway.

[alfredo]

18. We can cross reference it.

Murdoch's Sky news cares about selling papers, national security is not a priority

[C Moon]

6. He was probably nervous as hell wondering if they would catch on before he defected.

[fbc]

7. How is this a reverse Snowden?

Both exposed illegal activity at their own risk.

[KamaAina]

8. Because Snowden gave government data to WikiLeaks

while the defector gave data to the government.

[fbc]

10. No, he gave the information to a journalist.

it's in the first sentence.

[lsewpershad]

9. Hope

we don't get carried away..... remember the guy who [defector] who insisted that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction and led people [the shrub and others] full of hate and fear to [illegally ] invade Iraq? Now this does suggest we do nothing.

[mopinko]

11. yeah, making it public supports your theory.

[alfredo]

17. Sky News is a Murdoch rag.

[Sunlei]

12. That is a treasure trove. IS needs to be backtracked to the original group of 60/70 trained men.

The group that came out with the long line of new pickup trucks.

[6chars]

15. also front-tracked

find out who has been consorting with these people - there are going to be quite a few others like San Bernadino guy.

[Botany]

13. This is something that does not need to be in the media

n/t

[MariaThinks]

14. the questions are interesting. One says: knowledge of sharia

which to me implies that the more someone knows sharia, the more they are desired.

nothing about knowing the ten commandments, especially 'Thou Shalt Not Kill'.

[Javaman]

16. so...

does this mean the government "hacked" his phone to get all this intel?

[BooScout]

19. Locking...

This is a duplicate of this: http://www.democraticunderground.com/10141373931