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ISIS leaker gives 21 000 sensitive documents to Sky News

Accepted submission by bitstream at 2016-03-10 15:57:31
Security

A disillusioned convert to the group ISIS has released a memory stick with 21 000 documents on phone numbers, addresses, family contacts to Sky News [sky.com] which has then given the same information to the British MI6. Nationals from at least 51 countries, including the UK, had to give up their most personal information as they joined the terror organization. Only when the 23-question form was filled in were they inducted into ISIS. It's considered a "Goldmine Of Information" for intelligence services. The data was stolen from the head of Islamic State's internal security police, an organization described by insiders as the SS [wikipedia.org] of the group. The leaker had been entrusted to protect the core secrets of the organization and he rarely parted with the memory device.

Disillusioned with the leadership, which he says has now been taken over by former soldiers from the Iraqi Baath party of Saddam Hussein. He claims the Islamic rules he believed in have totally collapsed inside the organization, prompting him to quit.

The reporter met him at a secret location in Turkey, and he said ISIS was giving up on its headquarters in Raqqa (Syria) and moving into the central deserts of Syria and ultimately Iraq, the birthplace of the group. He also claimed that in reality Islamic State, the Kurdish YPG and the Syrian government of Bashar al Assad, are working together against the moderate Syrian opposition. From the attacks in Tunisia and the Bataclan massacre in Paris, it is clear that ISIS is refocusing its base of operations abroad and is intent on carrying out high-profile attacks in Western countries, something that security chiefs across Europe are warning about right now [sky.com].

There are entries for 'countries travelled through', 'previous fighting experience', 'who recommended him' and 'special skills' [sky.com]. The leaker says "There hasn't been anything at all like this since the discovery of the Sinjar records in 2007 [usma.edu] and that only covered about 700 people (IS fighters entering Iraq), all of whom were from Arab countries." The data contains 500 000 individual data points.

"There has been a slight change, they (the sponsors) are nowadays wanting to recruit people to attack in their own country rather than come to fight the war," [sky.com] the leaker said.

The former head of counter-terrorism at the Ministry of Defence, Major General Chip Chapman, told Sky News that the documents has huge value to the security services and is disastrous for ISIS. He says "Often counter-terrorism can be a treasure hunt without clues," and "They've given us the treasure chest and they've given us the key as well."

(The term "IS" is used in the source but ISIS is used here for clarity)


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