Benedetta Cabitza

ANONYMOUS THWARTED ISLAMIC STATE TERROR PLOT IN ITALY AND HACKED MATTEO SALVINI’S PAGE ON FACEBOOK

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Anonymous revealed in the morning of December 28th that they’ve successfully foiled an attack by Islamic State militants in Italy earlier this month.

‘ In this month we are working in silence. We have already foiled one atteack #ISISagaist #Italy, we hope to block the others’.

This was the message posted on Twitter on Christmas day and  now-deleted, using the account created by the hackers for Operation Paris – the worldwide cyber-retailiation lauched by the hacktivists in order to oppose to the IS and weaken it, after the terroristic attack in Paris on November 13th that killed 130 people and wounded 368.

#OpParis is urging Anonymous members to hack into ISIS websites to steal key information and leak it online, destroying its social media, which it uses to recruit new members and spread its own (Daesh) propaganda. The hacker-group after has declared a war against IS and vowed to ‘hunt them’, has also shut down 40,000 pro-IS websites, many of them were in Turkish and hosted in Turkey (according to the Daily Mail). The hacktivists have threatened to sabotage websites, servers, that operate Turkish airports, banks, military and government facilities unless the country proves it is not assisting the Islamic state.

After the first tweet Anonymous, then posted two more, menacing other attacks against the supporters of IS.

‘ We are digging your graves (…) we have found you, we are in your accounts and phones, the nightmare is about to begin (…) Isis will implode’. Then, also this post was deleted, but followed up by another one in which the hacktivists promised to go on with their work:‘ Keep calm, it’s not over yet’ ( (Dec.28 at 11.09AM).

Despite this, neither Anonymous has given any details of its operation and revealed the target of IS’ plot, nor has the Italian Government confirmed or denied if it had received information from Anonymous about the possible attack.  This lack made many activists and people on the web questioning about the effectiveness of this kind of strategy.  Anonymous responded to these arguments saying, on a post on Dec. 28th at 11.20 AM, that they didn’t care whether or not its claims were belived. It is important to notice that this post is written both in english and italian, which supports the hypothesis that the person behind it is thought to live and operate in Italy.

Furthermore this idea is upheld by the break-in of the Facebook page of Lega’s leader Matteo Salvini. On the Italian blog of Anonymous Italy a statement declared that the group is ‘working on the Lega’s websites since two weeks ago’  with the aim of ‘ himper as much as possible the political activities of the party and its racial ideology and propaganda’.

Apparently the hacking activities have started immeadiately after Salvini brief appareance in Bologna, where he tried to spread his political message and congratulated for the closure of some gypsy camps in the city.