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| 300 Americans among militia's online supporters |
| 2015-12-03 |
| [OMANTRIBUNE] Active online supp-orters of the Syria-based Baghdadi militia movement now include about 300 people identifiable as Americans, said a study by academic experts published on Tuesday. George Washington University's Programme on Extremism said in the study that the number of other Americans who passively "consume" Baghdadi militia propaganda runs to "several thousand", though they are not necessarily active supporters of the group. Twitter is the "platform of choice" most widely used by the active core of American supporters of Baghdadi militia, it said. American militia activists and sympathisers also use other social media, ranging from open forums such as Facebook, Google+ and Tumblr to more secretive messaging apps including Kik, Telegram, surespot and the dark web, the study said. American online supporters are sufficiently active and noisy to have established themselves as "nodes," or leading voices promoting Baghdadi militia themes, while others serve as "amplifiers," who repost materials from more prominent activists. The study said US Baghdadi militia activists have helped craft a "unique innovation" in murderous Moslem messaging. This involves creation of "shout out" accounts, which enable activists to "introduce new pro-militia accounts to the community and promote newly created accounts of previously suspended users, allowing them to quickly regain their pre-suspension status." The study noted that, although American social media accounts linked to militia are regularly suspended, among the activists such suspensions have become a "badge of honour and a means by which an aspirant can bolster his or her legitimacy." Operators of suspended accounts usually set up and start using a newly created account, using only a variation of the previous user name, "within hours" of most suspensions, it said. Even though Baghdadi militia's forerunners first emerged after the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, Baghdadi militia's "message did not exist" before the organization established itself in Syria and became involved in a civil war against the government of President Bashar Al Assad, said Lorenzo Vidino, one of the study's principal authors. Vidino cited FBI statistics indicating that US authorities are currently pursuing 900 terrorism-related investigations in all 50 US states. His study noted that 71 individuals have been charged by US authorities with militia-related offences since March 2014, with 51 of those arrests occurring in 2015. Separately, Nicholas Michael Teausant, a Caliphornia, an impregnable bastion of the Democratic Party,n, has pleaded guilty to planning to join Baghdadi militia in Syria, prosecutors said, and faces up to 15 years in prison. Teausant, 22, from the town of Acampo, on Tuesday pleaded guilty in a federal court in Sacramento to attempting to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization, the US Attorney's Office said. Teausant is one of a number of people locked away Maw! They're comin' to get me, Maw! in the United States in the last two years for planning to join Baghdadi militia. "This case, like others in communities across the United States and around the world, is an example of how a young person from any place and any background might make the terrible decision to try and become part of a terrorist organization," US Attorney Benjamin Wagner said. |
| Posted by:Fred |