The Islamic State has distributed a “kill list” containing the names of U.S. government personnel at the Pentagon, State Department, and Department of Homeland Security, as well as several other federal agencies.
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The 43 names were distributed Monday by the United Cyber Caliphate over a smartphone messaging application called Telegram, and were accompanied by phone numbers, cities and zip codes. However, street addresses were not included, and some of the information was affiliated with offices where the targets are employed. The words “wanted to be killed” were included in English, Arabic, French, Spanish and Russian, according to Vocativ.
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Other targets included personnel at the Departments of Energy, Commerce and Health and Human Services. Targets outside of Washington include staff at the Department of the Navy in Gulfport, Miss., and the U.S. embassies in Santiago and Kathmandu.
Though the cyber division of the Islamic State is often dubbed a “hacking” organization, there is little evidence of any sophisticated technical ability. However, the distribution of kill lists over Telegram has become a standard practice for the group. The names of police officers in Minnesota were released in March, while a list of U.S. officials was released in November.
