Posted on 04/29/2016 4:15:23 PM PDT by TigerLikesRooster
Dozens of IT experts, media workers desert ISIS in Mosul
April 30, 2016 Middle East & World
ARA News
ERBIL – Dozens of foreign IT experts from the radical group of Islamic State (ISIS) have deserted the group’s ranks in Iraq’s northwestern city of Mosul over the past few days, leaving a remarkable vacuum in the ISIS-linked media centers in the region, local sources reported on Wednesday.
Local sources confirmed that hundreds of foreign jihadis have recently left ISIS ranks and returned to their home countries, including technical support experts. This has put a pressure on the group’s media centers, which used to broadcast the pro-ISIS propaganda in support of the group’s self-declared Caliphate.
The new wave of dissidence also included a number of American nationals who used to serve as professional film makers on behalf of the extremist group in Mosul and other parts of Iraq.
Speaking to ARA News in Mosul, head of the Nineveh media center Raafat al-Zarari said that pro-ISIS sources admitted that the group has been suffering a shortage of media workers and IT experts “because many of them have left their areas, especially after the US-led coalition forces intensified airstrikes on media and command centers in northern Iraq and Syria.”
The US-led coalition forces have killed hundreds of ISIS top jihadis during the past few months, destroying dozens of media and command centers, as well as tactical units and weapons storage centers for the extremist group.
The source pointed out that the ordinary militants have no technical ability to observe electronic devices for civilians, including laptops, computers, hard drives and smart phones confiscated by the group’s Hisba police forces in the northern city of Mosul.
Al-Zarari explained that the majority of the fleeing technical experts hold the American citizenship. They were serving in media departments along with the group’s security centers in a bid to observe smart devices and computers confiscated from locals in Mosul.
“A number of American technicians have fled Mosul and crossed into Turkey through Syria earlier this week, while the remaining media workers do not have adequate technical expertise to do the same job of those technicians,” a source close to ISIS told ARA News, speaking on the condition of anonymity.
“Locals in Mosul should celebrate by now; their special files in the smartphones will no longer be retrieved,” the source sarcastically concluded.
“Some of those experts used to prepare multimedia reports in order to boost the group’s propaganda in a sophisticated manner,” Zarari told ARA News. “They were also delivering the materials to a large-scale audience on the social media. “These experts have attracted thousands of new followers, washing their minds, inciting them to involve in the bloody terror group across Syria, Iraq and even Europe.”
Many ISIS foreign members have left the city of Mosul after the US-led coalition forces stepped up airstrikes on the group’s media and communication centers. The crucial impact of ISIS propaganda films has dramatically reduced in the last few months, according to observers.
Reporting by: Sarbaz Yousef
Do they have an express lane to the gallows?
That's what we used to call traitors. Now they are "sympathizers"
Media operation is probably not a manpower heavy operation. It would be more like typical IT company. I suspect 100 tech people can run entire media operation including their Internet activities.
You may call me ‘Bob’
The phone goes Green, green, green
I Pink it up and say
Yellow, this is Mujibar!
Probably State Dept. employees.
“Prior to WW2 the Germans put out a call for all people with German names who lived overseas to return and become full fledged NAZI party members. 100’s if not 1000’s did go from the US. Were they allowed to return?”
If they learned anything about rocketry over there, darned right they were.
I still don’t understand why these people aren’t treated like spies and saboteurs in wartime. I believe that the Geneva Convention allows for summary execution of soldiers not in uniform.
Better idea
Shoot em
We don’t need this worthless traitors wasting our oxygen
Agreed. I see them no different than any other ISIS lowlife.
Really. I mean if you are certain they are Americans, why is this in a FreeRepublic thread? Give that information to DHS. And DONT put it on FR, if that is the case.
Or maybe it is just plausibly deniable enough for it to work as a headline?
1. Dozens is not a very large number.
2. Why were these people supporting ISIS until now?
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