The personal information of 22,000 ISIS fighters in Syria and Iraq has been leaked by a “disgruntled jihadi,” a former Free Syrian Army recruit of the Islamic State named Abu Hamed. He turned over to Sky News a memory stick stolen from the head of ISIS’ internal security police, which has been described as the Caliphate’s Gestapo. Richard Barrett, a former MI6 global terrorism operations director, described the information on the stick as the “biggest breakthrough in years,” Sky News revealed Wednesday night. The stolen documents contain names, nationalities, addresses, phone numbers, family contacts and blood types of ISIS recruits. Some of the phone numbers on the list are still active. According to intelligence sources, the leaked files will be extremely useful in tacking ISIS agents who return to launch attacks in Europe.
The leak includes information on 16 British fighters, including Birmingham hacker Junaid Hussain and Cardiff-born Reyaad Khan, who were killed by a US drone last year, as well as British rapper Abdel Bary, 26, who joined ISIS in 2013. Abdel Bary, himself the son of a convicted terrorist, was seen in ISIS promotional images last summer, holding up the severed head of a Syrian soldier.
The leaked documents are the ISIS HR entrance interrogations, and include the names of the ISIS member who vouched for each candidate.
ISIS Recruits come from 51 countries, and their personal details are logged on a 23-question registration card. The questions include date of birth, marital status, previous jobs, military experience, special skills, and next of kin contacts in case of an emergency.
The breakthrough the former senior intelligence source referred to was the fact that the documents reveal the identities of previously unknown jihadis in the UK, northern Europe, the US, Canada, the Middle East and North Africa.
One of the files on the stick is marked “Martyrs,” and includes the details of an entire brigade of fighters who were trained for suicide attacks.
The leaker, Abu Hamed, told Sky News he was disappointed with ISIS, which has been taken over by Saddam Hussein’s Iraqi Baath party. ISIS no longer conducts itself as an Islamist organization, which is why he decided to go AWOL.