The information of these Islamic State members was obtained by a British news agency in Turkey
Thousands of documents that reveal the names, phone numbers, addresses, and family contact of people who have joined the Islamic State, have come into the possession of United Kingdom’s Sky News on Wednesday.
The news channel reported that a former member of the extremist group had provided these documents on a USB flash drive. The drive was stolen from the head of the internal security of the group.
The documents are actually forms that all the Islamic State recruits needed to fill out before being accepted into the group. The information gathered by the Sky News pertains to people from more than 50 countries.
On its website, Sky news wrote that it had shared the information with the relevant authorities. However, there were no comments from either the interior or the foreign ministries of Britain.
There are some documents that offer information that was previously unknown. This mostly pertains to the members of the group in United States and Canada. Jihadis in the Middle East and North Africa have also been identified.
The availability of such comprehensive information reveals that there is growing dissent among the members of the group. Moreover, the information has opened the door for the security agencies for comprehensive identification of terrorists who were previously unknown.
It is also hoped that the current ISIS leak will also motivate other members of the group to come forward with more information which could be used in prosecutions. Flow of volunteers to the group from North America and Europe could also be stemmed because a comprehension of the reasons why people travel towards the extremist organization is the key to stop them from doing it.
The secret documents show that the a potential IS recruit was required to answer 23 questions which included the blood type, the mother’s maiden name, previous experience, and the individual’s level of the understanding of the sharia.
There are some names in the documents that have already been identified including Abdel-Majed Abdel Bary who used to be a rapper in London.
Another person is Junaid Hussain who hails from the city of Birmingham and works as a cyber operative for the group. 21 year old Reyaad Khan was also identified in the documents. Both Reyaad and Junaid were killed during the previous year.
The source of the document is a member of the FSA (Free Syrian Army) who had later joined the Islamic State Group. He is currently using the alias ‘Abu Hamed.’ Abu Hamed handed over the memory stick with the information to a journalist in Turkey.
