With its continued tactic of making use of social media to issue threats and proclamations, the terror group ISIS is targeting all U.S. military personnel, on active duty or not. In response, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has warned service members to scrub any anti-ISIS posts they may have made on Twitter, Facebook, or other social media accounts so as not to incite the terrorists.
A new security bulletin from the DHS notes that U.S. intelligence agencies have seen a growing number of calls for western-based members of ISIS to target U.S. military, law enforcement, and intelligence personnel by tracking them down individually using social media.
The FBI said it had information suggesting “individuals overseas are spotting and assessing like-minded individuals who are willing and capable of conducting attacks against current and former U.S.-based members of the United States military.”
This isn’t the first time this social media threat has been noticed. In October, the Army issued a bulletin after ISIS terrorists called on supporters to use social media to find names and addresses of U.S. military personnel and to “show up [at their homes] and slaughter them.”
U.S. authorities advised government employees, service members, and first responders to remove anything from their social media that might lead attackers to their doorstep and to avoid attacks that might occur with “little-or-no advanced warning.”
As CBS News reported, “As recently as the summer, U.S. officials had identified a handful of Americans linked with the radical group,” but that “the actual number was likely in the dozens.”
Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter @warnerthuston or email the author at igcolonel@hotmail.com.