An ISIS-affiliated Twitter account has issued a direct death threat to Twitter employees after the micro-blogging site stepped up its efforts to suspend all accounts related to the Sunni militant group.
In a series of tweets, an Islamic State follower called on all "Lone Wolves" in United States and Europe to target Twitter employees. Reports indicate that Twitter has started an investigation on the matter.
The Twitter handle in question, @dawlamoon, posted several posts in Arabic.
One of the posts translated by Vocativ said: "#The_Concept_of_Lone_Wolf_Attacks The time has arrived to respond to Twitter's management by directly attacking their employees and physically assassinating them!! Those who will carry this out are the sleepers cells of death."
Another said: "#The_Concept_of_Lone_Wolf_Attacks Twitter management should know that if they do not stop their campaign in the virtual world, we will the bring the war to them in the real world on the ground."
The Islamic State militant also stated specifically that the group wanted to target the Twitter employees in San Francisco.
Twitter following the threatening post suspended the @dawlamoon account, which was an affiliate account of Al Nusra Al Maqdisia — a Jerusalem-based militant group that had offered its allegiance to ISIS in February. The account had over 3,000 followers.
Twitter currently has started an investigation on the threat. "Our security team is investigating the veracity of these threats with relevant law enforcement officials," a Twitter spokesperson told Mashable.
Even as Twitter administrators have stepped up their efforts to suspend accounts affiliated with the extremist group, an NBC News report states that at least 28,000 Twitter accounts supporting the Islamic State have been set up since the beheading of American journalist James Foley, while there are at least 60,000 pro-jihadi accounts.
