Supporters and potential active members of the jihadist terrorist group the Islamic State are using the hashtag “Islamic State Topples US Defense Minister” to take credit for the resignation of Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel.
A Twitter search for the hashtag yields hundreds of results, many from self-proclaimed supporters of the Islamic State terrorist group. Most results are in Arabic, but a quick translation reveals that many are counting Hagel as a direct casualty of the Islamic State’s gains, particularly in Iraq. One user compared Hagel’s resignation to the fall of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki:
Others are celebrating by noting that some of Hagel’s final words as Secretary of Defense including warnings that the Islamic State was “well-organized, well-trained, well-funded”:
Some jihadists that appear to be tweeting from Syria or Iraq have simply celebrated the affair with photos of themselves and their weaponry:
But by far the most disturbing tweets are those with doctored images celebrating the resignation, including one of what appears to be the White House destroyed by a terrorist attack and the severed head of Chuck Hagel at the hands of a jihadist. Others use racial epithets to insult Hagel for being “fired” by President Obama, a black man:
The New York Times reported this morning that Hagel had tendered his resignation, though noting that sources indicated that it was not Hagel’s decision to resign. The Times report specifically mentioned Hagel’s lackluster work in combating the threat of the Islamic State and predicting its strength early as a reason the Obama administration had lost confidence in him. One senior official told NBC News that it was the opinion of the Obama administration that Hagel “was not up for the job.”