White House officials are drafting a presidential directive from President Trump that calls on his newly appointed defense secretary to take a more aggressive approach to attacking ISIS fighters in Syria. The New York Times reported that Trump is expected to make his first visit to the Pentagon Friday and will call on Secretary James Mattis to present new options within 30 days.
The recent Paris and San Bernardino attacks focused attention on Islamic State (IS or ISIL) militants’ use of technology to plot attacks and incite followers to carry out violence – and potentially escape detection from law enforcement. ISIS has become sophisticated at using Western approaches to radicalize and entice followers using social media and the Web.
“We have this new generation of terrorists who are very savvy on the internet. They know how to exploit it, to recruit, to train and to radicalize from within,” House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Michael McCaul said at an American Enterprise Institute event. “We’ve seen through the internet they’ve been able to recruit 40,000 foreign fighters from 120 different countries – something we’ve never seen before.”
US had devised a new strategy to defeat ISIS, and also started cyber warfare campaign against ISIS.The cyber warfare campaign is being carried out by military’s seven-year-old U.S. Cyber Command through full range of cyber warfare methods.
The goal of the new campaign is to disrupt the ability of the Islamic State to spread its message, attract new adherents, circulate orders from commanders and carry out day-to-day functions, like paying its fighters. A benefit of the administration’s exceedingly rare public discussion of the campaign, officials said, is to rattle the Islamic State’s commanders, who have begun to realize that sophisticated hacking efforts are manipulating their data. Potential recruits may also be deterred if they come to worry about the security of their communications with the militant group.
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