World

The ‘app of choice’ for jihadists: ISIS seizes on Internet tool to promote terror

When the Islamic State was seeking volunteers for a holiday killing rampage in Europe, it sent word over its favorite social-media channel: the messaging service known as Telegram.

“Christmas, Hanukkah, and New Years Day is very soon,” began a Dec. 6 posting on one of the terrorist group’s usual Telegram bulletin boards. “So let’s prepare a gift for the filthy pigs/apes.”

Two weeks later, when a truck mowed down pedestrians at a crowded Berlin Christmas market, the group again used Telegram, this time to claim credit for the attack. On Friday, after chief suspect Anis Amri was killed in a Milan shootout, Telegram broadcast his posthumous video. The Tunisian migrant had fled Berlin and crisscrossed France and Italy before being stopped by Italian police looking for a burglary suspect. In his video he pledges allegiance to the Islamic State and issues a chilling warning to Westerners: “God willing, we will slaughter you.”

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When the Islamic State was seeking volunteers for a holiday killing rampage in Europe, it sent word over its favorite social-media channel: the messaging service known as Telegram.

“Christmas, Hanukkah, and New Years Day is very soon,” began a Dec. 6 posting on one of the terrorist group’s usual Telegram bulletin boards. “So let’s prepare a gift for the filthy pigs/apes.”

Two weeks later, when a truck mowed down pedestrians at a crowded Berlin Christmas market, the group again used Telegram, this time to claim credit for the attack. On Friday, after chief suspect Anis Amri was killed in a Milan shootout, Telegram broadcast his posthumous video. The Tunisian migrant had fled Berlin and crisscrossed France and Italy before being stopped by Italian police looking for a burglary suspect. In his video he pledges allegiance to the Islamic State and issues a chilling warning to Westerners: “God willing, we will slaughter you.”

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Image courtesy of IB Times UK

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The SOFREP News Team is a collective of professional military journalists. Brandon Tyler Webb is the SOFREP News Team's Editor-in-Chief. Guy D. McCardle is the SOFREP News Team's Managing Editor. Brandon and Guy both manage the SOFREP News Team.

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