It’s clear Islamic jihadists are on a rampage, with two major attacks in the past eight days and multiple others apparently narrowly averted. The Belgian capital of Brussels is currently on lockdown and at the highest levels of alert, indicating a “serious and immediate threat,” after an “arsenal” of explosives and chemicals was discovered in a home raid earlier.
Now, we’re getting word of ISIS’ plans to attack several locations tomorrow, Sunday — including the U.S. city of Atlanta, Georgia. The report from the online activist group Anonymous — which declared war against ISIS in the wake of the Paris attacks — is reportedly being taken “seriously” by the FBI.
As International Business Times reports:
Anonymous, the loose collective of online activists, said Saturday it has uncovered information about Islamic State group attacks in Paris as well as at locations in the U.S., Indonesia, Italy and Lebanon, all apparently set for Sunday. OpParisIntel, a group within Anonymous, released a statement saying it had collected information about imminent attacks by the militant group — aka Daesh, ISIL and ISIS — in the French capital a little more than a week after a series of coordinated attacks there left 130 dead and hundreds injured.
Anonymous also said the Islamic State group is planning an assault at the WWE Survivor Series event scheduled to take place in the Philips Arena in Atlanta Sunday at 7.30 p.m. EST, as well as attacks at multiple events in Paris.
The collective published the list of potential targets alongside a statement: “The goal is to make sure the whole world, or at least the people going to these events, know that there have been threats and that there is possibility of an attack to happen. Another goal is to make sure Daesh knows that the world knows and cancels the attacks, which will disorientate them for a while.”
The targets listed by Anonymous are as follow:
- Cigales Electroniques with Vocodecks, RE-Play & Rawtor at Le Bizen (Paris)
- Concrete Invites Drumcode: Adam Beyer, Alan Fitzpatrick, Joel Mull at Concrete (Paris)
- Demonstration by Collectif du Droit des Femmes (Paris)
- Feast of Christ the King celebrations (Rome/Worldwide)
- Al-Jihad, One Day One Juz (Indonesia)
- Five Finger Death Punch (Milan)
- University Pastoral Day (Holy Spirit University of Kaslik, Lebanon)
According to Anonymous: “We only appeared now because our goal was to remain undercover and report everything to the right authorities and let them take all the action. But when authorities do not take action, Anonymous does. This part of the op started last Monday and has [been] and will be active 24 hours a day as long as the op is going on.”
Speaking to International Business Times, Anonymous said it had passed proof to the MI5 intelligence agency in the U.K., the CIA and FBI in the U.S., and the Australian government but that it has no plans to release the proof publicly. “If we share the proof [publicly], everyone will start calling it fake because screenshots can be edited and accounts can be deleted. We have purposely not shared account links publicly because they would be shut down immediately and then no one would believe the proof.”
Anonymous declared war on the Islamic State group last week, vowing to track it down online as part of its Operation Paris (or OpParis). It has since released a guide for all those looking to take part in the operation, which already has identified tens of thousands of Twitter accounts it said are associated with the militant group while also taking some websites offline. The Islamic State group has responded to the threat by Anonymous, warning of a retaliatory attack on the activist group.
Local Atlanta news reports speaking with the director of the Georgia Emergency Management Agency, Jim Butterworth, who said his agency is working closely with the FBI, the Georgia Information Sharing and Analysis Center and others in evaluating the threat on a Sunday WWE event in Atlanta reported by the group Anonymous.
While we don’t wish to be alarmist, we do feel a responsibility to keep y’all informed. Forewarned is forearmed. And hate to say that President Obama’s leadership doesn’t inspire any sort of confidence that our administration is on top of this.
In cases like this, we certainly pray the threats don’t pan out.
