Before opening fire at Naval Air Station Pensacola in Florida, the shooter, Muhammad al-Shamrani, a Saudi Arabian military student, tweeted a will quoting Usama bin Laden in justifying his act.
AQ media continues to adapt to a changing distribution landscape amid an ongoing Telegram crackdown on jihadist media.
During a recent tour through Europe to “see how National Socialist and nationalist organisations operate in Europe,” members of a U.S-based white nationalist group met up with a Nordic neo-Nazi organization that has been prohibited for its violent activities and ideology.
The Shabaab al-Mujahideen Movement, al-Qaeda's (AQ) branch in Somalia, claimed killing 10 Kenyan Christians in Wajir County and declared taking short-term control over a town in Garissa County, both in Kenya, as well as assassinating two Somali officials in Lower Shabelle region.
The al-Qaeda (AQ)-linked Global Islamic Media Front (GIMF) announced the launch of a RocketChat messaging server.
It was a big deal when accounts for the Islamic State and al-Qaeda started disappearing from the Telegram messaging app over the past month. For years, the platform has served as the central medium for extremist groups to radicalize and recruit members.
Capitalizing on the Islamic State (IS)-claimed attack on London Bridge, an Islamic State (IS)-aligned group threatened more attacks to come in the city.
The Islamic State's West Africa Province (ISWAP) claimed taking 14 prisoners, including two Red Cross employees, at a bogus checkpoint its fighters setup in Nigeria's Borno region.
The Afghan Taliban announced that it has no connection to the murder of Japanese doctor and humanitarians Testu Nakamura in Jalalabad, the provincial capital of Nangarhar.
Amid the mass deletion of jihadist channels, groups, and users on Telegram that began in mid-November, Islamic State (IS) media distributors are scrambling to find viable options for consistent alternative platforms.
The aforementioned Telegram crackdown was first observed on November 15, 2019, escalated in intensity alongside a Europol-led campaign on November 21, and continues into the present.
Platforms seen as options, based on repeated observations of IS media on them, include: Rocket.Chat (which now hosts an IS-dedicated server), TamTam, Hoop Messenger, Riot.im, Threema, and Conversations.
The atypical and rapid spread to a wide breadth of platforms comes due to these platforms’ proactivity in deleting jihadist material, proving far less stable than Telegram has been for the past five years.
Regarding the aforementioned IS server on Rocket.Chat, the group’s media arms had first entertained the maneuver in December 2018 – hosting propaganda material and communications on a private server under the domain “chat.techhaven.xyz.”
This nomenclature is still being used in this most recent, much more aggressive push to the Rocket.Chat platform amid the Telegram crackdown – changing slightly to “chat.techhaven.to.”
Because Rocket.Chat is allowed to be installed and maintained on a private server, the company’s monitoring and administration abilities are limited when group’s or users opt for this mode of use.
For a detailed analysis of the platform’s capabilities on this front, see SITE director Rita Katz’ January 2019 Wired article, “A Growing Frontier for Terrorist Groups: Unsuspecting Chat Apps.”
Following are images showing the aforementioned IS presence on alternative platforms:
IS Channels and Users as Seen on Rocket.Chat
IS Channels and Users as Seen on TamTam
IS Channels as Seen on Hoop Messenger
Capitalizing On Jersey City Shooting, Far-Right Community Calls For Further Violence Toward Jews December 12, 2019
Neo-Nazi Video Urges Community To "Stop White Genocide" With References To Oklahoma City Bombing December 12, 2019The SITE Intelligence Group has an unrivaled reputation for delivering verified, comprehensive, actionable intelligence and analysis addressing the online and on-the-ground activities of terrorist organizations worldwide.
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