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ISIS Selfie

US Air Force tracks Isis command centre from fighter’s selfie

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By Jessica Davies, News Editor

June 7, 2015 | 2 min read

US intelligence officers have reportedly been able to locate an Isis command centre after finding and tracking a selfie of one of the Isis soldiers posted on social media.

According to Reuters an Air Force general spoke of how the Florida-based 361st Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance Group picked up on a selfie of an Isis fighter in front of the so-called command facility, and used the comments to track down the facility.

A total 22 hours after spotting the selfie they had launched a direct attack on the target.

According to the AirForce Times General Hawk Carlisle, commander of Air Combat Command spoke about the attack at a speech in Arlington Virginia, where he said:

"The [airmen are] combing through social media and they see some moron standing at this command," Carlisle said at the speech, which was sponsored by the Air Force Association. "And in some social media, open forum, bragging about command and control capabilities for Da'esh, ISIL, And these guys go 'ah, we got an in.'

"So they do some work, long story short, about 22 hours later through that very building, three JDAMS take that entire building out. Through social media. It was a post on social media."

Isis is known to use social media as a recruitment mechanism, and has reportedly posted 1,700 pictures, videos and other publications, reaching up to 200,000 readers on Twitter and other sites.

It’s not the first time a soldier has inadvertently exposed their location to enemy forces by posting a selfie. Last summer during the Ukrainian civil war, which placed a Russian soldier in rebel-held Ukranian territory at a time when Moscow had denied any involvement in the conflict.

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