The deadly ISIS terrorist group is notorious for using social media for things such as propaganda aimed towards recruiting impressionable young men or to display brutal torture videos to instill fear in the general population.
However their social media presence proved to be their undoing when an Islamic State militant tweeted a selfie in front of an IS headquarters in Syria, which helped US and Coalition forces identify and destroy the building soon after.
The terrorist had posted the picture with a caption bragging of the extremist group’s recently seized territory, and intelligence analysts in Florida were able to determine the exact coordinates of where the picture was taken.
US Airforce men in the intelligence unit at Hurlburt Field in Florida found a picture posted of a militant standing at his command.
They searched his online presence further and found more posts with him bragging about the control and command capabilities. This provided them with enough information to find out more. Some 22 hours after the ‘genius’ posted the selfie, a coalition airstrike destroyed the building and killed everyone inside.
“The guys were combing through social media and see some moron standing at this command bragging about the command and control capabilities for Daesh,” Air Force General and head of Air Combat Command, Herbert ‘Hawk’ Carlisle, reports defencetech.org.
“Long story short, about 22 hours later through that very building, three JDAM’s [Joint Direct Attack Munitions] take that entire building out. It was a post on social media. Bombs on target in 22 hours.”
This came only a day after US Deputy Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced that over 10,000 Islamic State militants have been killed during the last nine months since an international coalition has formed against the terrorist fighters.
