Junaid Hussain

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Junaid Hussain (Arabic: جنید حسین‎‎, c. 1994 – 25 August 2015) was a British-Pakistani black hat hacker and propagandist under the nom de guerre of Abu Hussain al-Britani who supported the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).[1] Hussain, who grew up in Birmingham in a Pakistani-origin family, was jailed in 2012 for hacking Tony Blair's accounts and posting his personal information online.[2][3][4][5][6][7][8] Hussain left the UK around 2013 for Syria, and was at one point[which?] suspected of being the infamous executioner "Jihadi John".

Hacking and propagandizing

Hussain was known as TriCk from the disbanded hacking group TeaMp0isoN.[2][9] He was a key figure in a group of Islamist computer hackers who call themselves the Cyber Caliphate. The Islamist hackers have been involved in defacing French websites during the 2015 Île-de-France attacks and the Twitter feeds of the U.S. Central Command, Newsweek and the International Business Times.[1] The group is believed to be behind the use of a spearphishing attack that exposed identities of rebel media groups.[10]

Hussain was in online contact with one of the gunmen behind the Curtis Culwell Center attack of May 2015. Before the incident, an attacker posted online statements on Twitter, in which he requested others to follow Hussain's account. After the shooting occurred, Hussain wrote: "Allahu Akbar!!!! 2 of our brothers just opened fire."[11][original research?]

Attempts on life and death

An attempted lethal drone strike on Hussain instead killed three civilians and injured five about ten days before his death.[12]

The Sunday Times reported that US officials had a strong desire to assassinate Hussain, listing him as the third highest ISIL target on the Pentagon's "kill list" behind Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and Mohammed Emwazi due to his role in inspiring international lone wolf terrorism.[13][14][15] US government sources reported Hussain was killed with two of his bodyguards in a drone strike on a car in a Raqqa petrol station on August 24, 2015.[lower-alpha 1] Hussain, 21 at the time of his reported death, was married to Sally Jones, 45, a former punk rocker and fellow Briton, who denied his death through IS-linked Twitter accounts.[16] Jones later confirmed the death. Hussain was reportedly killed in a drone strike that was targeted as a result of him clicking on a compromised Internet link.[17]

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ Because of the international dateline, the date in Iraq time is different to the date in U.S. time. The Pentagon's report says the drone strike occurred on August 24 while The New York Times reports the strike occurred on August 25.

References

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  16. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  17. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
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