On Friday night, a man wearing a Guy Fawkes mask appeared in a chilling video posted on YouTube. He said that Islamic State militants who claimed responsibility for the series of attacks carried out in Paris were “vermin” and ‘Anonymous’ would hunt them down.
Anonymous, a loosely-knit international network of activist hackers, which has claimed responsibility for many cyber-attacks against the government, corporate and religious websites over the past dozen years, has vowed to unleash waves of cyber attacks on Islamic State, following the attacks in Paris last week that killed 129 people, a self-described member said in a video.
“These attacks cannot remain unpunished,” the man said, speaking in French.
We are going to launch the biggest operation ever against you. Expect many cyber-attacks. War has been declared. Get ready. We don’t forgive and we don’t forget.
The video posted on YouTube attracted more than 1.1 million views by 09:30 EST, on Monday.
Since the attack on the French weekly, Charlie Hebdo, last January, which took away 17 lives, Anonymous activists have waged an online vigilante campaign to force the shutdown of Twitter profiles suspected of belonging to ISIS supporters.
The group says it has identified more than 39,000 suspected ISIS profiles and reported them to Twitter. It claims to have had more than 25,000 of these accounts suspended, while nearly 14,000 more on the targeted list remain active, according to a list posted to a site calling itself Lucky Troll Club.
(With inputs from Reuters)