European and US police hit the Islamic State propaganda machine

A coordinated effort of law enforcement agencies (law enforcement authorities of the European Union Member States, Canada, and the USA) hit the Islamic State propaganda machine.

European law enforcement agencies coordinated by Europol conducted an unprecedented multinational cyber operation against the Islamic State’propaganda machine.

Authorities have “punched a big hole” in Islamic State’s propaganda machine, they targeted news agencies and radio stations in a two-day takedown operation.

“On 25 April 2018 law enforcement authorities of the European Union Member States, Canada and the USA launched a joint action against the so-called Islamic State (IS) propaganda machine in order to severely disrupt their propaganda flow.” read the press release published by Europol.

“The takedown operation was coordinated by the European Union Internet Referral Unit (EU IRU) within the European Counter Terrorism Centre (ECTC) at the Europol headquarters.” 

The operation hit Islamic State media outlets, including the Amaq and Nashir news agencies and al-Bayan radio.

The authorities seized the servers and are analyzing data to identify the administrators behind principal media outlets.

“With this groundbreaking operation we have punched a big hole in the capability of IS [Isis] to spread propaganda online and radicalise young people in Europe.”  said Rob Wainwright, executive director of Europol.

This isn’t the first time Europol and other agencies target Islamic State propaganda machine since 2015 they have conducted numerous operations to shut down the infrastructure used by the terrorists.

“This shows that by working together we can stamp out the poisonous propaganda Daesh [Isis] has used to fuel many of the recent terror attacks in Europe. For too long the internet has been open to terrorists and those who seek to do us harm. Those days are coming to an end thanks to this type of co-ordinated global work.” said the EU security commissioner, Julian King.

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Pierluigi Paganini

(Security Affairs – Europol, online terrorist propaganda)

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