WASHINGTON, March 21 (Reuters) - Islamic State has posted online what
it says are the names, U.S. addresses and photos of 100 American
military service members, and called upon its "brothers residing in
America" to kill them.
The Pentagon said after the information was
posted on the Internet that it was investigating the matter. "I can't
confirm the validity of the information, but we are looking into it," a
U.S. defense official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said on
Saturday.
"We always encourage our personnel to exercise
appropriate OPSEC (operations security) and force protection
procedures," the official added.
In the posting, a group referring
to itself as the "Islamic State Hacking Division" wrote in English that
it had hacked several military servers, databases and emails and made
public the information on
100 members of the U.S. military so that "lone
wolf" attackers can kill them.
The New York Times reported that
it did not look like the information had been hacked from U.S.
government servers and quoted an unnamed Defense Department official as
saying most of the information could be found in public records,
residential address search sites and social media.
The Times
quoted officials as saying the list appeared to have been drawn from
personnel mentioned in news articles about air strikes on Islamic State.
The group's forces control parts of Syria and Iraq and have been
targeted in U.S.-led air strikes.
The posting, addressed to
disbelievers, Christians and "crusaders" in America, included what the
group said were the names, military service branch, photos and street
addresses of the individuals. The posting includes the military rank of
some but not all of those named.
Source: HuffPost
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