The Army says it’s investigating an Islamic State group call to harm U.S. troops at home. The militant organization occupying parts of Iraq and Syria reportedly posted the names, photos and home addresses of 100 American service members accused of participating in bombing missions against it.
Soldiers expressing reactions on social media sites appeared unconcerned.
While those threatened generally consisted of Air Force, Marines and Navy personnel, Army spokeswoman Lt. Col. Alayne Conway told Army Times that the Army is working with the Defense Department to determine the validity of the claims and assessing the threat.
“In the meantime, our Criminal Investigation Division is working with the Federal Bureau of Investigation and has provided the information to local units and, as always, we encourage soldiers to take prudent measures to limit the sharing of personal information online,” Conway added said.
Army officials could not say whether U.S. soldiers were among service members identified by the militants.
Conway did not immediately respond to questions regarding whether any soldiers were among the service members identified by the militants.
Some soldiers have responded on social media by posting their info accompanied by some iteration of “Bring it.” Commenters on the Army Times’ Facebook pagelink to the Marine Corps Times story on the threat have been characteristically defiant; most posted some form of a meme (many of them vulgar) daring Islamic State group supporters to try such an attack, and a few soldiers went so far as to post their own addresses.
The group posting the service members’ information goes by Islamic State Hacking Division. According to the New York Times, an unnamed Defense Department official said the data appears to have been gleaned from public records and online searches, not government servers.
