ISIS propaganda hub appeared on the Darknet

Posted on November 16, 2015November 16, 2015 by Denise Simon

The popular security expert Scot Terban (aka @krypt3ia ) discovered a few hours after the Paris attacks, a new ISIS propaganda hub appeared on the Darknet.

SecurityAffairs: The Paris attacks shocked the world, the war is overwhelmingly coming into our homes and the intelligence experts fear that this is just the beginning. The ISIS knows how to spread his message, none in the past was able to organize a so effective propaganda. Each media is masterfully handled by terrorists, social networks, instant messaging app, gaming platforms and forums course in the darknet.

In June, the Europol announced the creation of a team that aims to find key figures in propaganda campaigns run by ISIS members seeking to recruit foreign fighters. The Isis‘s machine propaganda is scaring as efficient, it generates something like 100.000 daily tweets, and it’s used to recruit foreign fighters to support the group.

The Isis is gaining a lot of power in the last years, for the first time a terrorist organization has resources and capabilities to proclaim itself a State.

For this reason, the Europol announced the creation of a new Europe-wide police unit to search for the core leaders of Isis’s social media propaganda campaign. The police unit will track the leaders responsible for an average of 100.000 tweets a day.

The Paris attacks have raised the level of attention on the organizations that could have supported the terrorist operations from the inside. What are the channels used by terrorists to communicate and what technologies they used?
Many intelligence experts point to the revelations of Snowden as an element that has greatly benefited the terrorists to escape the control exercised by the police. Terrorists are aware that intelligence agencies are carefully monitoring telecom communications, emails, instant messaging apps and much more.

That’s why groups like the ISIS are looking for new channels to reach wider audiences, such as the gaming consoles and the Dark Web, two environments where it is necessary a significant effort to track and identify the source of the messages.

paris attacks

A few hours after the cruel Paris attack, Daesh (al-dowla al-islaamiyya fii-il-i’raaq wa-ash-shaam, a.k.a. ISIS/ISIL) launched his propaganda on the Dark Web.

The website contains translations in English, Turkish, and Russian from the recent statement issued by Daesh claiming credit for the Paris attacks.

The new propaganda center was discovered by the popular researcher Scot Terban (aka @krypt3ia ), who reported it to the colleagues at Salted HASH.

The expert noticed a post that explained the need to create a new hub for propaganda, this is the response to the numerous operations against other websites used by the ISIS that were seized by law enforcement of targeted by hacktivists online. The terrorists decided to move on the Darknet to make the Daesh more resilient to take over attempts.

“Terban came across the new Al-Hayat hub while performing jihadi research over the weekend.” states Salted HASH. “In a post on the Shamikh forum (a known jihadi bulletin board), someone posted the new address and instructions for reaching it.”

The new website includes a collection of propaganda video and images produced by Al-Hayat Media Center, the media division of Daesh. It is known to the intelligence because it is used to spread content glorifying the jihad against the infidel West, including poems for mujahids and songs (Nasheeds).

In the past, Daesh already had propaganda and recruitment hubs on the Darknet, but as explained by the expert it is the first time ever it published proof of those claims.

Terban has mirrored the website and its files, the intention of the expert is to analyze them and publish more details in the coming days. The site is a mine of information , it includes data from various sources, including standard bulletin boards used by the ISIS terrorists.

“The site mirrors many of the other standard bulletin boards that the jihadi’s have had over the years replete with videos and sections in all languages. Given that this site has popped up today in the Darknet just post the attacks in Paris, one has to assume that an all out media blitz is spinning up by Al-Hayat to capitalize on the situation,” Terban wrote.

The new Daesh hub demonstrates that even if the ISIS is aware of the Internet surveillance of western government, it considers the use of technology as strategical.

The Dark Web is a privileged environment for cyber criminals and state-sponsored hackers due to the anonymity offered by its services. The Dark Web is difficult to monitor for intelligence agencies and it is not so easy to locate members of terrorist organizations like the ISIS that share propaganda content. In the principal black markets hosted on the deep web it is possible to purchase any kind of illegal product and service, but in the dark part of the web it is possible to find propaganda videos and images. Hidden services in the Deep Web also offer the possibility to download the mobile apps used by the jihadists to communicate securely and to transfer Bitcoins to terrorist cells in every place of the world.

The new Daesh hub also suggests ISIS sympathizer the use of Telegram, a secret encrypted messaging platform that is largely adopted by terrorists.

Telegram is “A Secret Chat is a one-on-one chat wherein all messages are encrypted with a key held only by the chat’s participants.” It is an essential tool for all the individuals that need to protect their communication from prying eyes.

Telegram’s Channels used by the terrorists allow them to reach tens of thousand followers instantly.

How ISIS Learns the Tactics, the eBook Series

Posted on November 16, 2015November 16, 2015 by Denise Simon

The terror cells across the globe are hardly operating in the Dark Ages, but rather they are tech savvy and are using published books on the internet written by experts. They have developed plans far beyond what world leaders are equipped to handle both in the realms of diplomacy or militarily.

Europe is returning to the Dark Ages [due to the financial recession]. Armed gangs are forming into militias for racist politicians, and a young Muslim minority is their enemy. All this while a Caliphate is growing across the Mediterranean sea next door. How does this mix of chaos lead to the conquest of Rome (the capital of Europe)? Read: Black Flags from Rome – to find out how.

Paris, photo on the left.

Europeans go to Syria: Many young Sunni Muslims from Europe would go in Aid convoys to Syria to help the oppressed Syrians who had been abandoned by the entire world. They would provide them humanitarian aid, and give them moral support. Some would even join armed groups there similar to how the earlier generation had defended Bosnia. Many of them simply wanted the war to end, for peace to prevail, and for the Syrian Muslims to live a safe life without Bashar al-Assad being a dictator over them. However, as hundreds of thousands of innocent people were killed by Bashar, the West could not justify Bashar’s stay in power, but they were also uncertain about how the strongest [Islamic] fighting groups in Syria would rule after his removal. So they simply waited, hoping to see a clearer perspective on who could win the war. Depending on who the victor was, they would plan accordingly. The Islamic State re-awoke within the midst of this Syrian war, after the exit of American troops from Iraq in 2010. Many of the Muslim emigrants who came to help the Syrians joined the Islamic State. Sunni armed groups who were being funded by Arab regimes were paid to fight the Islamic State instead of the real enemy Bashar al Assad, so the Islamic State fought back. The Western powers would not get involved in physical ground combat because they had just withdrawn from a failed war in Iraq (their public wouldn’t be happy with it.) This opportunity gave the Islamic State to grow stronger, with more fighters and more territory and resources as the world watched on.

Those who had left Europe to join the Islamic State would now be able to help other Europeans’ get into Syria. They would give them Tazkiyah (recognition of ‘purity’ from being a spy or agent). The Tazkiyah meant that the fighter of the Islamic State in Syria trusted his friend to join the Islamic State. As a result, thousands of new generation Muslims from Europe and from around the world were able to get into Syria and train in the Training camps of the Islamic State. Here they could learn basic armed/shooting combat, assassination techniques, how to make exp0sives from homemade materials etc.

As soon as the Syrian Jihad begun, the Islamic State competed with other groups to capture the vast Syrian-Turkish border. All groups wanted to control this border so they could access Turkey. Turkey was strategic because it was the place where its fighters could buy equipment from, from where all foreign fighters would enter to join the Islamic State and most importantly – where its experienced fighters would leave Syria (as ‘refugees’) into Turkey, and from Turkey would enter into Europe. [Note: many Syrian refugees were even escaping to Italy due to the civil war in Syria. No doubt, some of these refugees were undercover fighters of Al Qa’idah and the Islamic State. They were quick to take the opportunity of entering into the different countries of Europe (most probably as early as 2012). All this was happening under the nose of the European intelligence services whose job during this time (2012) was only to prevent European Muslims from entering Syria. (This shows how quick the Islamic groups were in planning ahead. Years before Europe even knew where its Muslim citizens were going – experienced Islamic fighters had already found safety in Europe.) While the experienced Islamic State fighters left Syria for Europe, the European Muslims who had emigrated to the Islamic State would train within the Training camps, and nobody doubted -neither the Islamic State, nor the West- that some of these trainees would be sent back to Europe to form their own secret cells to continue the Jihad and to seek revenge for the Western occupation of Muslim lands. These fighters would simply receive their training and be told to go back to their European home countries, to go into ‘sleeper cell’ mode until the Khalifah (Caliph) Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi ordered to start attacks in Europe.

Paris Had Their 9/11, who is Next? Interpol

Posted on November 16, 2015November 16, 2015 by Denise Simon

Sorry, but some unvarnished truth is required now and beginning to understand the threat is the first step to safety and self preservation but more, it is both an offensive and defensive measure. This post will be data rich.

July 2015: Interpol has issued a warning to countries operating in the Mediterranean to be on the alert for an attempt by ISIS militants to carry out some sort of operation at sea over the next few days, Italian military sources have told Migrant Report.

Three U.S. governors have taken proactive measures to stop refugees from coming into their respective states but White House senior staffer on the National Security Council, Ben Rhodes stated that the refugee program will continue regardless of matters in Europe and Paris.

Michigan, Alabama, Louisiana are the governors asserting their 10th Amendment authority. The question then becomes if this program continues what other states will be forced to take the refugees?

PARIS (Reuters) – Fingerprints from one of the suicide bombers behind the attacks at the Stade de France in Paris matched the prints of a man registered in Greece in October, a French prosecutor said on Monday.

“At this stage, while the authenticity of a passport in the name of Ahmad al Mohammad, born Sept. 10 1990 in Idlib, Syria needs to be verified, there are similarities between the fingerprints of the suicide bomber and those taken during a control in Greece in October,” the Paris prosecutor said in a statement.

The prosecutor also said a second bomber at the Bataclan concert hall had now been identified. The prosecutor named him as 28-year old Samy Ammour from Drancy, north of Paris and said he was known to counter-terrorism units after being placed under investigation and judicial control for attempting to go to Yemen.

He disappeared in the autumn of 2013 and an international arrest warrant was issued for him.

“Five of the terrorists killed have now been identified,” prosecutor added.

The mastermind of the Paris attack has been identified:

A French official has named the suspected mastermind behind the Paris attacks as a Belgian man called Abdelhamid Abaaoud. He recently traveled to Syria and returned to Belgium.

June 2015: Juergen Stock cited this shift as an emerging trend at a UN Security Council meeting along with changing travel methods being used by foreign fighters seeking to join groups like the Islamic State and al-Qaeda.

Stock was a keynote speaker at a meeting attended by half a dozen ministers including US Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson to assess progress in implementing a US-sponsored resolution adopted last September requiring all countries to prevent the recruitment and transport of would-be foreign fighters preparing to join extremist groups.

On Friday, the Security Council adopted a presidential statement calling for a significant increase in border controls, improved cooperation at all levels “including preventing terrorists from exploiting technology, communications and resources.”

Johnson said the United States will be developing a new passenger data-screening and analysis system within the next 12 months which will be made available to the international community at no cost for both commercial and government organizations to use.

In a report obtained by The Associated Press on April 1, the panel of experts monitoring UN sanctions against al-Qaeda said the number of fighters leaving home to join al-Qaeda and the Islamic State group in Iraq, Syria and other countries has spiked to more than 25,000 from over 100 nations. The panel said its analysis indicated the number of “foreign terrorist fighters” worldwide increased by 71 percent between mid-2014 and March 2015.

There is no intelligence problem from or by an any government intelligence apparatus, but rather the voids are in the laps of the political wings where they themselves remain in a fetal position due to political correctness. Barack Obama is in that mix.

One of the Paris attacks terrorist was previosly charged, the French prosecutor François Molins said.

Fingerprints from one of the suicide bombers behind the attacks at the Stade de France in Paris matched the prints of a man registered in Greece in October, the prosecutor said on Monday.

It is known that International terrorism warrant was issued for one of the attackers by Interpol.

This post will be rich in links, so some real study is required here.

BRUSSELS (AFP) – One of the suicide bombers in the Paris attacks had links to a Belgian Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) militant believed to be the mastermind of an extremist cell dismantled in January, a report said on Monday (Nov 16).The name of Paris attacker Brahim Abdeslam appears in several police files alongside leading militant Abdelhamid Abaaoud relating to criminal cases in 2010 and 2011, Flemish-language newspaper De Standaard reported.
Let’s be clear: Al Qaeda, the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, Boko Haram, the Shabab and others are all violent Sunni Salafi groupings. For five decades, Saudi Arabia has been the official sponsor of Sunni Salafism across the globe.

Most Sunni Muslims around the world, approximately 90 percent of the Muslim population, are not Salafis. Salafism is seen as too rigid, too literalist, too detached from mainstream Islam. While Shiite and other denominations account for 10 percent of the total, Salafi adherents and other fundamentalists represent 3 percent of the world’s Muslims.

Unlike a majority of Sunnis, Salafis are evangelicals who wish to convert Muslims and others to their “purer” form of Islam — unpolluted, as they see it, by modernity. In this effort, they have been lavishly supported by the Saudi government, which has appointed emissaries to its embassies in Muslim countries who proselytize for Salafism. The kingdom also grants compliant imams V.I.P. access for the annual hajj, and bankrolls ultraconservative Islamic organizations like the Muslim World League and World Assembly of Muslim Youth.
Seven terrorist attacks have been thwarted in the last six months, David Cameron has revealed as he oversees the biggest increase in security in the UK since the 7/7 bombings, including the recruitment of nearly 2,000 new spies.Â He warned that the deadly terrorist attacks that hit Paris on Friday night, killing 129 people, “could happen here” and Britain faced a continued threat by Isis.
The French Prime Minister has warned that more terror attacks are being prepared against France and other European nations as police raids continue across the continent.
The fifth named attacker is Ahmad al Mohammad, a Syrian. He is the man who entered the EU through Greece in October as an asylum seeker. The authenticity of his passport, which said he was born in Idlib in 1990, has not been confirmed.

He blew himself up at the Stade de France.
Samy Amimour was one of the attackers at the Bataclan, French media reports.
Prosecutors have confirmed the identity of the fourth named suicide bomber. He is Samy Amimour, born in 1987 in Paris, living in Drancy. He was reportedly known to security services following a terror case in 2012.

Tell Bloomberg About Darknet Arms Trafficking

Posted on November 15, 2015November 15, 2015 by Denise Simon

Michael Bloomberg, former mayor of New York went off after the Paris attacks stating once again an issue with people having the ability to get their hands on guns. Ah …Michael you trying to do gun control in Europe also? Sheesh. Get a clue Bloomberg, here is a memo on the Darknet.

There is also a State Department visa waiver program that allows foreigners to travel freely in countless countries globally much less, Europe is borderless due to the Schengen Agreement. Borders and documents MATTER! Oh and hey Michael, payment methods often include the bitcoins, track that sir.

The Middle East is full of weapons, all kinds of weapons and to resell them is nothing more than a yard sale. An AK-47 in good condition sells for $50.00 (U.S.) or less.

How Dark Net Arms Dealers Could Easily Smuggle Assault Weapons To Paris

Europe’s open-border policy has made it harder for government officials to track illegal weapons that come from as far away as the U.S.

Vocativ: When terrorists in Western Europe want guns, they usually tap into a 20-year-old market that took root and flourished at the end of the Balkan wars. Now with the rise of the dark net, that market has been digitized and deals on illegal guns are only a few minutes away.

Vocativ used our technology to scan several current and active dark net marketplaces and found several postings selling AK-47s, the types of guns eight ISIS terrorists were said to have used during the deadly attacks in Paris on November 13. Across a dozen sites, we found 281 listings of guns and ammunition, including 16 submachine and machine guns, 12 sniper rifles and 40 assault rifles. The majority of the vendors ship from the U.S., as well as Russia, Germany and the Netherlands.

Terrorists likely acquired weapons through the black market or dark net, as France has especially strict gun laws. The French government estimates there are about 7.5 million legally owned guns in the country. Some estimates claim there are as many as 10 to 20 million illegal weapons in France. A European Commission study estimates some 67 million unregistered firearms exist in the EU.

When the illegal firearm market initially grew from weapons originating in the Balkans, criminals and terrorists wanting weapons had to connect with the right crime organization. Now, they just have to connect to the Internet. If a terrorist (or anyone) wants to buy an illegal assault rifle today they just have to download the Tor browser, which allows them to search the web anonymously, then find eBay-like marketplaces, which can be found on the regular Internet.

In January, Philippe Capon, the head of UNSA police union told Bloomberg that AK-47s sell for about 1,000 euros ($1,181 USD) to 1,500 euros ($1,650 USD) on the French black market. Our Vocativ analysis shows that the current going rate for AK-47s on the dark net ranges from 547 eros ($590 USD) to 6,300 euros ($6,785 USD).

“The guns moved from the Balkans to Western Europe and other parts of Europe in small and medium shipments, so that makes it very difficult to monitor and investigate and protect against,” said Cédric Poitevin, head of the Arms Transfers and Small Arms project at GRIP (Group for Research and Information on Peace and Security), which is based in Brussels. “They can move across criminal networks within Europe. First to Belgium and other parts and then to someone who is linked to criminal or terrorist networks.”

An open-border policy has likely made matters worse. The United Kingdom does not participate in Europe’s open-border program and the country has had very little gun crime, but other European nations have not been so fortunate. “We face the same challenge in all countries with the almost absence of border controls,” Poitevin told Vocativ. “The fact that we are close to the Balkans and, generally speaking, two countries in Eastern Europe with huge stockpiles of guns that have been made available.”

Poitevin say, most of what he and European government officials know about firearm trafficking and smuggling comes from assumptions, arrests and limited studies. “Only recently there has been political priority,” he said. “Until recently there was very little funds to study the issue and build stats and to gather quantitative information.”

One of the most recent efforts to study gun trafficking began in 2013, when Interpol created the Illicit Arms Records and Tracing Management System (iARMS), which allows member countries to report and track weapon trafficking. In 2014, Europol announced they would make gun smuggling a priority. That initiative focused largely on the rise in Internet trafficking. They had some success in October that year. French law enforcement agents raided several homes across the country and found hundreds of weapon stashes, which included assault rifles and machine guns.

*** Meanwhile, the Paris attackers communicated with each other using PlayStation 4 and they in turned communicated with Islamic State using an app called ‘WhatsApp’.

Belgium’s home affairs minister says ISIL communicates using Playstation 4

Quartz: The day after terror attacks in Paris left at least 127 dead and some 300 wounded, attention has turned to Belgium. Several arrests were made in Belgium today (Nov. 14), and a black Volkswagen Polo with a Belgian license plate had been spotted on the night of the attacks near the Bataclan theater. Police have raided a Brussels neighborhood where three of the eight attackers are believed to have lived.

More fighters have joined ISIL from Belgium, per capita, than any Western nation.

Belgian federal home affairs minister Jan Jambon has previously described Brussels as a weak link in the fight against terror. Speaking at a debate last week, he said: “The thing that keeps me awake at night is the guy behind his computer, looking for messages from IS and other hate preachers.”

Jambon also reportedly warned of the growing use by terror networks of the PlayStation 4 gaming console, which allows terrorists to communicate with each other and is difficult for the authorities to monitor. “PlayStation 4 is even more difficult to keep track of than WhatsApp,” he said.

The gaming console also was implicated in ISIL’s plans back in June, when an Austrian teen was arrested for downloading bomb plans to his PS4.

France Does Strike Back Against ISIS

Posted on November 15, 2015November 15, 2015 by Denise Simon

France has begun major strikes on Islamic State in Raqqah. 10 jets bombed 20 targets including: training camps & munitions depot.

Activist from Raqqa reports that as of yet, there are no civilian casualties as a result of French bombing.

Raqqa no Civilian got killed or Wounded by the Warplanes Airstrikes until now according to the Raqqa Hospitals. France is using precision bombs likely some of ours hence no collateral damage.

French planes took off from Jordan and the UAE, the raids were also in coordination with the US. The US is giving France the strike targets. It cannot be forgotten that Russia was purposely omitting ISIS targets and concentrated on other anti Assad forces but did targets did not include Raqqah. Russia was and is using dumb bombs and cluster munitions, something no other country uses except Syria and Iran.

*** Of particular note, it is apparent that Barack Obama would not give the GO order to our own air campaign, but rather to France. One must ask why?

WSJ: The U.S. is expanding intelligence sharing with France and has agreed to speed the delivery of detailed targeting information in support of French retaliatory strikes against Islamic State militants in Syria and Iraq, officials said.

In response to Friday’s coordinated terrorist attacks in Paris, the U.S. has started sharing so-called “targeting packages” with France, identifying Islamic State targets for strikes by French warplanes. It also plans to roll back restrictions that impede intelligence sharing to make it easier for France to intensify its air campaign.

Officials said the changes amount to giving France a seat at the table alongside America’s most-trusted intelligence-sharing partners in developing future target packages for strikes against Islamic State.

France has fighter aircraft positioned at bases in the region, in Jordan and the United Arab Emirates, which could be used in retaliatory strikes against Islamic State in Syria and Iraq once targets have been identified.

Defense officials said Secretary of Defense Ash Carter has been an advocate of easing restrictions on intelligence sharing with France.

After Mr. Carter spoke on Sunday with French Minister of Defense Jean-Yves Le Drian, their second call since the attacks in Paris on Friday night, Pentagon press secretary Peter Cook said the defense chiefs “agreed on concrete steps the U.S. and French militaries should take to further intensify our close cooperation in prosecuting a sustained campaign” against Islamic State.

In his statement, Mr. Cook didn’t spell out what those “concrete steps” would entail.

France isn’t part of the so-called Five Eyes intelligence alliance comprising Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Britain and the U.S. Under the alliance, the five countries have committed to sharing the signals intelligence they collect.

In the past, French officials have pressed their American and British counterparts to allow Paris to join the Five Eyes intelligence alliance. More recently, French officials have instead pressed the U.S. for intelligence-sharing benefits on par with the countries in the alliance, particularly in the area of counterterrorism.