Hacktivist group Anonymous has vowed to continue its battle against ISIS, and posted a new video declaring “war” on the extremists following the horrific terror attacks in Paris, France that took place on November 13. In its latest video, a man dressed in black and wearing the familiar Guy Fawkes mask synonymous with the group says in French, “We will launch the biggest operation ever against you.”
The narrative starts with the man saying “These attacks cannot be left unpunished, that’s why Anonymous worldwide will track you.” He continues, “The French people are stronger than you and will come out of this atrocity even stronger,” adding, “expect massive cyber attacks. War is declared. Get prepared.”
Make no mistake: #Anonymous is at war with #Daesh. We won’t stop opposing #IslamicState. We’re also better hackers. #OpISIS
— Anonymous (@GroupAnon) November 15, 2015
The video references Anonymous’ ongoing campaign against ISIS, which began in earnest following the Charlie Hebdo shootings at the beginning of the year. Since then, ‘Operation ISIS,’ as it has been dubbed, has taken down extremist websites, and the related #OpIceISIS campaign on Twitter continues to expose and help shutdown extremist propaganda accounts.
On November 14, a message to ISIS credited to an Anonymous spokesman was posted to Pastebin, giving a very similar message to the video, but in English. It mentions teams behind several Anonymous-linked Twitter accounts would “work together to take down all ISIS cyber communications and accounts.”
The @GroupAnon Twitter account has posted several messages since news of the Paris attacks spread. “Just to be clear,” stated one tweet, “Anonymous hasn’t only just declared war on Islamic State, we’ve been at war for quite some time already.” The most recent tweet at the time of writing reiterated the point, adding the group are “better hackers.”
The Anonymous operation is apparently based on gathering information, which it will then make public, and use to take down ISIS related sites and social media accounts. News and conversation related to the operation is being tracked and shared using the #OpParis hashtag on Twitter.
