Translated material
Hunting for "Legon"
How American intelligence agencies destroyed the Center for Propaganda of the Islamic State
One of the main differences between the Islamic State from Al-Keda and other terrorist groups is the active use of the Internet for the promotion of radical Islam and the recruitment of supporters. Mostly propaganda through social networks, as well as hacker attacks, in the interests of IS, a small detachment of Legion (as it was called in the FBI), consisting of young and technically savvy Islamists, was engaged. Now almost all of them are dead. The New York Times tells how the American special services managed to defeat the Legion.
A typical participant in the Legion-21-year-old Junaid Hussein comes from Birmingham. It is involved in the theft and publication of personal data of more than a thousand American military and officials. Hussein called on the supporters of the “Islamic state” to the murders and recruited adherents of radical views. While in Rakke captured by the militants, Hussein supported correspondence with many supporters in the United States, mostly no older than 22-23 years old-and helped them plan terrorist attacks.
The FBI managed to detain many young people with whom Hussein before they implemented their plans. And a lot was planned: a mass murder in a bar or a concert in North Carolin, the murder of an American military and an attack on a police station in Cincinnati, the murder of American publicist Pamela Geller in Boston. All these crimes were supposed to commit young Americans inspired by Islamic propaganda and conversations with Hussein. One of them was shot during the detention, the other two were sentenced to decades in prison. In total, the FBI was delayed more than a hundred people associated with the same as Hussein members of the Legion.
The activity of the "Legion" reached the peak in the spring and summer of 2015. By this time, as the director of the FBI James Komi says, all the forces of the department were thrown to fight the propaganda threat, and agents who are usually engaged in traditional investigations of murders and other crimes were transferred to surveillance departments. Until 2015, no one in the United States aimed at the Legion, and certain cases of recruitment of Islamist state authorities investigated as usual.
The FBI convinced the leadership of the international coalition fighting against IG in Syria that the recruiters from the Legion pose a serious threat, and aimed hunt began behind them. Soon, with the help of missile strikes from drones, more than ten members of the Legion were killed, after which the activity of the IG online warrior came to naught and stopped pose such a threat as before.
Hussein was killed in August 2015 in Racca when he left the Internet cafe. The drones traveled him more than once, but did not let out rockets, because the Islamist walked along the streets of the “capital” of Islamists with a young adoptive son. The widow of Hussein, 47-year-old British Sally Jones still lives in Racke and is proud that her husband died at the hands of the “main enemy of Allah”.
The American security forces admit that the IG still has a well-organized unit on working with social networks, which can inspire attacks similar to the events in San Bernardino and Orlando, and still a strong enemy with secret cells in Europe. But they note that coordinated efforts to combat “Legon” are the success of the United States in reducing the capabilities of IS to direct, execute and inspire attacks against the West (English).