Pro-IS twitterati wage a ‘war’ against micro-blogging website

Back with new aliases every time their accounts get suspended.

Pro-IS Twitter account holders have waged some sort of war against the administrators of the micro-logging website, creating and circulating new aliases every time their accounts get suspended.

“My Message to Jack & his Twitter Admins is, If u suspend our accounts we'll be back, & If you leave them we'll tweet, So good luck,” tweeted one such account, sending out message to his followers: “Got suspended. Back again. You know the drill. RT & Support.”

Another anonymous Twitter user, who had earlier

>called for a car bomb attack during the recent U.S. President Barack Obama’s visit to India in January and then targeted Prime Minister Narendra Modi, has since then opened over a dozen accounts.

“Modi Obama the two Enemy of Allah. #26 January#flag hosting#car bomb#chemical,” said a tweet through the new account on January 25, adding: “The people of kufr is one Millah.#Modi#Obama.”

Through another account, which was also suspended, the same user — suspected to be one of the four alleged IS recruits from Thane, — had about a month ago claimed that a third Indian national named Abdul Rehman had been killed while fighting for the terrorist outfit.

The latest account, showing the user’s location in Turkey, became active on Saturday, soon after its previous avatar was suspended. Within hours, it had about 250 followers. Interestingly, the same user appears to have created two more accounts for future use, if the present one is blocked by Twitter administrators.

Issuing a threat, the user tweeted: “Keep on suspending ... Come to you soon.”

Offensive clips erased Such pro-IS propaganda accounts are constantly being suspended and their contents, including offensive video clips, erased. However, hundreds of the outfit’s sympathisers, who follow each other’s accounts, have been creating new ones and sharing details among themselves to keep up with the pace of action by the social media administrators.

Indian security and intelligence agencies have already stepped up surveillance on such social media accounts to ascertain whether recruitment attempts are being made by the outfit.

“The Thane case, in which four young men had flown to Iraq to join the outfit last May, was an eye-opener. Although one of them [Aarif Majid] has now been brought back and arrested, we need to counter the outfit’s propaganda with full might to prevent such incidents,” said a senior police officer.