‘Vigilance’ Urged For U.S. Marines And Military Following ISIS Release Of Home Addresses

In the wake of a bold, threatening, and dangerous new move by ISIS — the Islamic terrorist group releasing the names and addresses of U.S. Military members and urging their fellow jihadis to kill U.S. soldiers on American soil — Marine officials are urging “vigilance” for their fellow state-side Marines and other affected U.S. Military members.

While it has yet to be confirmed that the ISIS message to its “brothers residing in America” is actually from ISIS, U.S. Military officials are opting to ere on the side of caution, according to AFP.

U.S. Marine Corps Lieutenant Colonel John Caldwell made this clear, saying in a statement, “Vigilance and force protection considerations remain a priority for commanders and their personnel.”

With at least 100 names, pictures, and other information of U.S. Marines and other U.S. Military members said to have been released by ISIS, U.S. Marine Corps officials are contacting those people, while also reinforcing the ongoing suggestion that all U.S. Military members, Marines and otherwise, limit details and other personal information with any of their online and social media presence.

“It is recommended Marines and family members check their online/social footprint, ensuring privacy settings are adjusted to limit the amount of available personal information.”

The alert, urging added caution and vigilance for U.S. Marines and other U.S. Military members, stems from a group calling itself the “Islamic State Hacking Division,” believed to be associated with ISIS, posting an online message that they’d hacked “huge amounts of data” from U.S. databases and “decided” to release it so that state-side ISIS supporters could go to the homes of U.S. Marine and Military people and kill them.

“With the huge amount of data we have from various different servers and databases, we have decided to leak 100 addresses so that our brothers residing in America can deal with you… Now we have made it easy for you by giving you addresses, all you need to do is take the final step, so what are you waiting for?”

At the same time, the New York Times reports that a Defense Department official didn’t believe that the information was “hacked,” but rather, that it is public information available to most anyone.

Also, some believe this latest threat from ISIS is their attempt to showcase their trademark bravado and confidence that all is well in the ISIS ranks as they continue on a victorious path toward jihadi victory over the infidels, when in fact, they are experiencing heavy woes on the battlefield.

Such is the belief of NATO commander Philip Breedlove, who thinks the ISIS “hacking” group message is just trying to take focus away from ISIS military failures.

“What we have seen across the last several months is that every time they take a defeat on the battlefield, or every time they are under great pressure on the battlefield, they come out with kind of some big splash like this. This (ISIS) caliphate, I think, is under great pressure and so they try to divert attention from what is happening on the battlefield.”

Other coalition countries, along with the U.S. that have also been targeted by ISIS’s calling on “lone wolf” terrorists to do harm, include Canada, Japan, and Italy.

Unfortunately, some of these “lone wolf” type attacks, such as the Boston Marathon bombings, have succeeded in doing significant harm on U.S. soil, and the U.S. Military hasn’t been immune.

With the current U.S. Military and Marine focus on vigilance, however, hopefully terrorist attacks against U.S. Military members, such as the Fort Hood shootings by Nidal Hasan, can be avoided, and calls by ISIS for domestic U.S. terrorism attacks quashed.

[Image by Kevork Djansezian / Getty Images]