#OpISIS 3

In #OpISIS Part 2, we covered “Operation NO2ISIS” and #OpIceISIS, the first two cyber operations that Anonymous launched against ISIS in mid- to late 2014. Keeping in mind that information has been lost over the years due to deleted tweets and Twitter accounts, it appears that these two campaigns were initiated by the Twitter account, @TheAnonMessage.

Part 2 also discussed Buzzfeed’s recent articles about the Whitmer kidnapping case and Exeintel, a private intelligence firm founded by FBI agent, Jayson Chambers. Questions remain about whether or not Chambers was funneling sensitive case information (or, how much) to a far-right, “I like to wear Nazi masks,” ISIS-fighting, online troll who calls herself “ravagiing” and “SheliJ” (among a host of other names and online handles she uses) and claims to be the CEO of Exeintel.

Aside from an FBI agent sharing confidential information from the bureau with @SheliJ to boost his private security company’s profile, Buzzfeed also reported that Chambers was lurking around the #OpISIS/“ISIS slaying” scene as early as 2015.

In Part 2, it was noted that @AnonScandinavia, a longtime associate of Beth Bogaerts — a notorious defamation/disinfo social engineer who has repeatedly tried to string journalists up for crimes they didn’t commit and astroturfs her face online to legitimize her campaigns using the old adage “sex sells” — is also a longtime associate of SheliJ’s.

@AnonScandinavia admitted that they were a member of SheliJ’s online group and on the very day that Agent Chambers filed corporate documents for Exeintel, LLC in 2019, @AnonScandinavia publicly confirmed on Twitter that she was still a friend. While encouraging everyone to follow Tracy Beanz (a virtually unknown Youtuber at the time), and running their 2017 Vault 7 and “Warren Flood”/Cicada 3301 LARPs, not only did @AnonScandinavia deliberately hide their relationship with Bogaerts for years, they kept it a secret from WikiLeaks activists that they were part of a fed-infested, ISIS-slaying, Nazi group.

@AnonScandinavia also made at least one public comment diminishing the seriousness of hacktivists/activists working with U.S. intelligence agencies — a red flag that we all ignored — this, while simultaneously presenting himself/herself/themselves to activists as having a close relationship with Julian Assange and actively working to secure his freedom.

Prior to shutting down their 5-year old Twitter account directly after I started publishing The Rabbit Files, @AnonScandinavia followed numerous Twitter accounts that are managed by people and/or companies who are directly funded by and/or working with the U.S government, including the Pentagon and Department of Justice.

For example, they followed Rita Katz, the founder and CEO of Site Intelligence Group, a private security firm that specializes in tracking online terrorism i.e. ISIS. They have received over $2.5 million in funding from the U.S. government and the company still maintains open contracts with the U.S., the last one granted only a few months ago.

In addition, Blackwater (while still in existence as “Blackwater”) “hailed” SITE Intelligence Group as “an invaluable resource.”

@AnonScandinavia also boasted about being in communication with Ghost Security Group, a private security firm that was founded by members of Anonymous who were deeply involved with #OpISIS. In 2015, they left the collective and founded Ghost security Group in order to work directly with governments and intelligence agencies in a legitimate capacity.

So yes, @AnonScandinavia was knee deep in #OpISIS and teamed up with SheliJ via her Nazi ISIS slaying group that may have been working with federal agents like Jayson Chambers as early as 2015, if not earlier. But before there was #OpISIS, there was #OpIsrael, a precursor to what I’ve always said was a fed-ridden operation to go after online jihadists.

Background Information You Should familiarize Yourself With: #OpIsrael

Z Company Hacking Crew (ZHC) and “TriCk”

According to the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point, the Z Company Hacking Crew (ZHC) was established as an offshoot of “TeaMPoisoN,” another hacking group founded by Junaid Hussain (a.k.a. TriCk), a British citizen turned ISIS member and the first known hacker to be assassinated with a U.S. drone strike.

Hussain reportedly became radicalized after a 6-month prison stint and according to author and anthropologist, Gabriella Coleman, “The Trick story is such a fascinating one and important one to tell, especially the jail experience. It changes you.”

After his release, Hussain left Britain and traveled to Syria where he married Sally-Anne Jones, a former punk musician who converted to Islam. He also joined ISIS and allegedly became the “Islamic State’s chief terror cybercoach” and head of the “Islamic State Hacking Division.” According to “former senior U.S. and U.K. security officials”:

It was Hussain’s recruitment efforts, propaganda dissemination, attack plotting and inciting, and sensitive information leaking that made him a high-value target for coalition forces. According to media reports, his name appeared as number three on the Pentagon’s target list.

Notice how they don’t even mention hacking because apparently the U.S. government was more terrified of ISIS’ PR guy and publisher of leaks than the actual hackers. Hussain was brutally assassinated on August 24, 2015, by a U.S. Hellfire missile.

Two years later, his wife was also killed by a U.S drone strike alongside her 12-year-old son.

As for THC, over the years the group earned itself a reputation for high-profile hacks and webpage defacements, some in collaboration with Team Poison including hacking Tony Blair’s assistant (this is what landed Hussain in prison for 6 months), and Facebook pages managed by organizations such as the English Defense League:

In a four-year span, Team Poison also claimed to have hacked Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook page, named and shamed members of the far-right English Defense League, and leaked the address book of Tony Blair’s personal assistant. It hacked NATO, the British Ministry of Defense, and other government targets. Most famously, Team Poison claimed to have flooded the British spy agency MI6’s terrorism hotline with prank calls, releasing a recording of an agent telling them she’d report them to the F.B.I. — the spy agency equivalent of ‘wait till your father gets home’ — that would have mortified 007.

On a lighter note, if you remember when the Megan Fox fan site was defaced with an anti-NATO protest message, that was ZHC.

“Mauritania Attacker,” an Islamic hacker from Africa, claims that he was a member of Team Poison before joining the Z Company Hacking Crew. After leaving ZHC, he went on to start a new hacking group called “Mauritania Hacker Team.”

Mauritania Attacker and the Mauritania Hacking Group

According to an article published by Reuters in 2013, Mauritania Attacker, the leader and founder of the pro-Islamic group, Mauritania Hacking Group, represented “a new generation of Western-style Islamists who promote religious conversation and traditional value, and oppose those they see as backing Zionism and Western hegemony.”

The desert country of Mauritania from which the hacker and his online handle allegedly hailed from is a former French colony and the last country in the world to abolish slavery. It’s also known for its strict Islamic law i.e., homosexuality is punishable with death by stoning.

According to the Reuters article, Mauritian Attacker and his team members were not extremists and were fighting for Islam “using peaceful means.”

Mauritanian Attacker aims to promote ‘correct Islam’ by striking at servers hosted by countries they see as hostile to sharia law. ‘There is no Islam without sharia,’ he said

In 2012, the group appeared out of nowhere but they quickly made a name for themselves by (allegedly) committing high-profile cyber attacks which included hacking the Bank of Israel’s website and leaking “tons of credit card details.” However, Reuters reported that security sources in Nouakchott, the capital of Mauritania where Mauritania Attacker allegedly resides, were not aware of the groups’ activities.

For what it’s worth, I should also mention that in early 2012, Hackread.com reported that the Mauritian Hacking Team was actually a part of the Z Company Hacking Crew (ZHC), not a separate group. It’s unknown (to me) if that’s true or not.

Teamr00t

After creating the Mauritania Hacking Team, the Mauritania Attacker went on to form another hacking group called “Teamr00t.” However, according to one interview, he had “some little problems with Teamr00t” so he shut it down.

Indeed, the pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel hacking group didn’t seem to last that long. Their Twitter account @Teamr00t was created in June 2012, and it appears that the last tweet they posted was on December 16, 2012, a mere six months later.

Anonghost

After Teamr00t disbanded, Mauritania Attacker put together a crew called “Anonghost,” another pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel hacking group that included former members of Teamr00t. In an interview with meethackers.in, Mauritania Attacker stated (consider [sic] to be included in a lot of of what they say):

i started AnonGhost Team, after closing my previous team Teamr00t.

i had the idea like this, because, i saw Anonymous idea spreading everywhere, but i decided to create a strong and crazy team like AnonGhost, so an Anon who is Ghost.

When asked why he closed Teamr00t, he said, “because i had a problem with an old member of ZHC. who was like a bro to me.” Then they discussed how he onboarded U.S. and U.K. intelligence agents to his team because this is completely normal stuff and doesn’t sound at all like someone trying to cover their arse for having feds on their team:

As for his thoughts on the Illuminati, Mauritania Attacker said that the “Illuminati are hidden group of persons, who use black Israeli magic’s, and use material to control people, and brainwash them,” so that happened.

Research Problems

The entire Anonghost/#OpIsrael timeline has been fairly difficult, if not downright confusing at times, to research. Unfortunately, it doesn’t appear that any historians have detailed the story in its entirety although there were a few online sources and one book I found that contained some surprisingly detailed facts about events from this time period.

I have concluded that after the infamous 2011 leaks from Anonymous and the arrests that followed, including Jeremy Hammond and Barrett Brown, there has been scant interest in documenting, in any sort of historical, long-form medium, what Anonymous, as well as affiliated hacking groups that were involved in the same operations, have been up to. That is, until Aubrey Cottle returned to the scene in 2020, but that’s a whole ‘nother ball of wax.

As for the confusion surrounding Anonghost, let me give you an example. One of the first times that “Anonghost” was mentioned on Twitter was on February 9, 2012, in regards to software literally called “Anon.Ghost.” I have no idea if there’s any relationship with the hacking group.

Archive

Two days later, an Anongh0st account was created…and then more followed:

@AnonGh0st: Created on February 11, 2012, the account is still alive and appeared to focus on Latin American operations, namely Brazil. That’s not to say you can’t find tweets mentioning “@anongh0st” outside the scope of Latin America, you can, they just didn’t appear that involved with #OpIsrael. However, Teamr00t was involved with some hacks in Latin America so maybe that was the account’s original purpose. It was also created during the same time period when Sabu and the FBI were feeding Jeremy Hammond targets in Brazil so whatever. Maybe that’s something to keep in mind.

@AnonGhost_ (“Luis Garcia”): Created in November 2012, the account is still alive. There are only approximately six tweets in the history of Twitter (based on surviving tweets and accounts) from this account, directed at this account, or mentioning it, with the hashtag #OpIsrael or the word “Israel.”

However, on November 19, 2012, they tweeted, “Does anyone have an Israeli flag, a jug of gasoline and some matches? It’s for a friend.” Their last tweet was on July 27, 2013.

Note: As early as June 28, 2013, they retweeted a sentimental tweet from someone that was directed at Ray Johansen’s bestie at SoMee Social so it seems pretty obvious that @AnonGhost_ knew who they were. Color me surprised.

@An0nGhost (“An0nGhost”): This account was created sometime in December 2012, or earlier, and was eventually suspended. Based on tweets and articles, it appears linked to the Mauritania Attacker (see here and here).

@AnonGhost (“AnonGhost”): Earliest “AnonGhost” account created, maybe. It was opened in 2010, it’s still live, but it doesn’t show any tweets. A September 2021 archive shows that the account was suspended so it’s possible someone recently recycled the handle.

And if you research #OpIsrael and #OpISIS long enough, you’ll eventually stumble upon the Mauritania Hacking Society, Mauritania Zombie HaCkers, Anonghost Hacking Team, AnonghostTeamLegend, AnonGhostMafia, GhostSec, Ghost Security Group, Ghost Squad, Mr. GHO5T, GHOSTSEC-TEAM, @_Gh0stSec, “Gho5t,” alleged AnonGhost team members like @ungku_nazmi, and anonghost-sec.com that was recently created on May 29, 2021, and so on and so on.

And for those of you that followed @AnonScandinavia’s old Twitter account, you might remember when they posted a tweet approximately 2 years ago about how “Ghost was back,” and they included a screenshot from the movie “Ghost.” That was in reference to [insert some new handle and old hacking team that includes the word “Ghost”]

So, the question becomes, “Which accounts were really tied to Mauritania Attacker and which ones weren’t, if any?” Another problem encountered in my research was the failure of most websites, news outlets, and intelligence reports to provide any sort of documentation or evidence that showed accounts attributed to certain hackers and/or hacking groups were, in fact, actually related.

For instance, if Newsweek reported that xyz twitter account, which was supposedly managed by xyz hacking group, bragged about hacking into a government system, how did they know if the Twitter account claiming to be xyzabc hacking group was legitimately managed by them? Anyone could have made an account with some form of “Anonghost” in the handle. Making this story even messier is the fact that we don’t even know if some of these hacking groups were who they said they were.

I realize there’s a hefty amount of animosity between Anonymous and an American hacker named “Jester,” but in 2012, Jester made a good point about the leaderless collective that prides itself on anonymity (but not really because they’ll dox literally anyone and their mother if you hurt their manbaby feelings). Because of this so-called strong belief in anonymity and the shared idea that anyone can be “Anonymous,” any individual or group can hack, leak, and protest in their name.

This would obviously include terrorist groups such as ISIS who can easily masquerade as members of Anonymous, or any hacking group affiliated with them. On the flip side, I’ll later address one group that portrayed itself as pro-ISIS but multiple countries now believe that it was actually a front for the Russian government. And yes, this was before the 2016 election and Russiagate, everybody chill.

I found it particularly interesting throughout my research that hackers like Mauritania Attacker and his team members were interviewed numerous times over the years. Like…how did the media outlet know they were actually speaking with them? Oh, they interviewed them via their Facebook account? Well, how did they know that the Facebook account was managed by an actual Mauritania Hacking Team member?

And the real question is why mainstream media like Reuters would ever give someone like the Mauritania Hacker the time of day while they were attacking the U.S government’s greatest ally, Israel. Think about it, folks. Anyhoo —

As we continue with this story you’ll see that AnonGhost posted some rancid stuff online and the dealio with anonymity is that anyone who spewed antisemitic, pro-ISIS rhetoric behind the AnonGhost mask can easily deny it today.

As for why I felt that we needed to backtrack and examine #OpIsrael, I’ve always thought that #OpISIS was the gateway for post-Sabu fed infiltration but now I believe that it may have taken place earlier than that with #OpIsrael. This post and the next are more like a timeline of sorts than anything else and maybe other people can help fill in the missing pieces. Anyways, let’s get on with it…

2011: The Tunisian Revolution, Arab Spring, #OpIsrael and Sabu

According to Erik Skare’s book, “Digital Jihad: Palestinian Resistance in the Digital Era,” one of the few sources I found that tracked #OpIsrael and Palestinian counteraction via cyber warfare in any sort of detail, the ferocity of Arab hacktivists and the targeting of Israeli websites drastically increased after the Arab Spring.

The anti-government, pro-democracy protests were sparked by the Tunisian Revolution in December 2010, a 28-day uprising that members of Anonymous took part in via #OpTunisia. Despite the fact that intense civil and political unrest throughout the small, North African country only lasted a month, protestors were able to successfully oust the Tunisian president, and the revolutionary spirit spread like wildfire into other countries like Libya, Egypt, Yemen, Syria, and Bahrain.

As these countries roiled in turmoil, #OpIsrael slowly took shape and the following is an attempt to put this operation’s gradual development in context with both the hacktivist/WikiLeaks scene I reported on in the previous article and the Arab Spring. For example, when protests erupted in Libya and Egypt in January 2011, the U.K. police arrested five people in connection with “Operation Payback,” an Anonymous operation that targeted “companies and institutions considered hostile to WikiLeaks,” such as PayPal.

In early February, unrest in Cairo’s Tahrir Square turned violent as the battle for control between President Mubarak’s supporters and protestors escalated. Meanwhile, the hashtag #OpIsrael was posted on Twitter for the first time by Simplon.co founder, Frédéric Bardeau (@fbardeau), who claimed that “Could we launch #Opisrael?” was heard in an “anon” Internet Relay Chat (IRC).

Archive

The very next day, the Financial Times published an article in which HBGary Federal’s then-CEO, Aaron Barr, bragged about infiltrating Anonymous via IRC channels, an announcement that didn’t end well for him:

FT’s article mentioned how Anonymous “continued to ambush high-profile targets, recently forcing government sites in Egypt and Tunisia to close,” clearly an item of concern on Barr’s agenda. This takes us to a video that journalist, Barrett Brown, recently uploaded to Twitter:

In the video, Brown briefly discussed the Tunisian Revolution and revealed (to those of us previously oblivious to certain details) that Barr not only tried to infiltrate Anonymous, he spied on Tunisian nationals and exiles operating out one of Anonymous’ IRCs while members and associates of Anonymous “were assisting in the democratic transfer in Tunisia.”

After Anonymous found out about Barr’s activities they hacked his emails, one of which included that now infamous presentation created by Palantir, HBGary, and Berico Technologies. From “WikiLeaks Under Attack Part Five: The Enemy Within,” that I wrote in early 2018:

What you might not know about this time period is that on November 11, 2010, Assange revealed in an interview that he was ‘sitting on a trove of secret documents’ and that he intended to ‘take down’ a major American bank. The revelation came a year after he announced that he had the ‘hard drive of a Bank of America executive containing five gigabytes of data.’

There’s nothing more entertaining than watching a bank go into a downward spiral after learning that WikiLeaks may or may not have the goods on you and that’s exactly what happened at the Bank of America (BofA). They hired outside security and law firms to review thousands of their documents in case they ever became public, they looked into whether or not their systems had been compromised, and three internet security companies, HB Gary Federal, Palantir Technologies, and Berico Technologies, pitched a “How to Take Down WikiLeaks 101” presentation to the bank’s lawyers.

Among other things, the presentation recommended “a multi-pronged assault on WikiLeaks including deliberately submitting false documents to the website to undermine its credibility, pioneering cyber attacks to expose who the leakers to WikiLeaks are and going after sympathetic journalists.”

In a recent interview with Counterpunch Radio, Brown described HBGary as a DOJ-protected, “black ops concierge service,” willing to infiltrate and discredit labor unions, force pro-WikiLeaks journalists like Glenn Greenwald to “choose cause over career,” employ military techniques against activists and journalists, and create software that can deter or change the narrative.

Because of Brown’s (and others) work, we now know that HBGary and Palantir were at the “forefront of developing some of the tools that have now become standard practice for U.S. misinformation, disinformation, warfare — everything from sock puppet social media accounts to manipulation of followers, to all kinds of different things.” CounterPunch Radio’s host, Eric Draitser, noted that Brown had uncovered much of this early on:

This is not a discreet, historical episode. We’re not talking about the introduction of some technology 12 years ago that just went away, right? What you’re talking about is having a glimpse early on in some of the tools that have built out and sort of created this extraordinarily toxic and completely manufactured bullshit media, social media ecosystem, that exists …what you were exposing ten years ago illustrated sort of — or maybe, gave us a glimpse into the hellscape we live in now.

Indeed. Not only has Palantir become more powerful over the years, and their technology and tools more expansive, Thiel is now at the forefront of controlling U.S. elections.

His involvement in the 2016 election and Trump’s subsequent transition team is well documented. And although he sat out in 2020, which a recent article published by The New York Times noted days after Brown pointed out the same thing, the media outlet’s sprawling story detailed Thiel’s deep pockets and his seemingly limitless involvement in controlling the 2024 elections — more specifically, his desire to put Trump back in the White House. Their headline:

The Right’s Would-Be Kingmaker: Peter Thiel, one of Donald J. Trump’s biggest donors in 2016, has re-emerged as a prime financier of the Make America Great Again movement.

Terrifying. After Palantir, HBGary and Aaron Barr were exposed for criminal intent and surveilling activists, conduct that Brown says was protected by the U.S. Department of Justice, one has to wonder how the U.S. government and these private intelligence firms exacted their revenge because it would be foolish and naive to think that they didn’t.

Sure, the DOJ was able to turn Sabu, track down members of LulzSec/AntiSec, and imprison one of their loudest critics, Barrett Brown. And sure, one might think, “Well, there’s your revenge,” and you may be right. But look at it this way: After all the arrests, spying, and ops to silence activists and journalists (don’t forget Manning and Assange) — basically everything that transpired — if you were a fed, HBGary, or Peter Thiel, wouldn’t you wonder why Anonymous hackers all of a sudden were happy to work with you via #OpISIS?

Right. It’s so beyond insane that this ever happened and it goes against everything that Anonymous allegedly stands for and so, if no one wondered then my guess is that there were deals and plans for further infiltration already in place.

Across the globe and two weeks after Barr’s decision to go public with his spying operation, a massive protest called “Day of Rage” took place in Bahrain. The hashtag #OpIsrael also showed up on Twitter for the second time:

On May 2nd, one of the first (if not the first) “OpIsrael” Twitter accounts was created, and the very next day Lulzsec, a hacking group led by FBI-informant Sabu (he wasn’t an informant yet), created their first Twitter account, @LulzLeaks. The hackers tweeted, “There is much to do — prepare yourselves,” and for the next 50 days they hacked anything they could get their hands on.

The Summer of 2011

On the evening of June 7th, LulzSec’s “50 days of Lulz” came to a halt when Sabu was arrested by the feds at his New York home. After the feds turned him the following day they set him loose on the internet for the next nine months.

Almost immediately after his arrest, Sabu created a new group called #AntiSec and then he handed out foreign targets like candy to unsuspecting hackers like Jeremy Hammond — the hacked data of which was deposited directly onto FBI servers.

Less than two weeks after Sabu got busted, a Facebook page called Mauritian Hackers Society a.k.a. “MauriHackers” was created, however, it’s unknown if it’s linked to the Mauritian Attacker. The Facebook page is still available and the bio reads:

Maurihackers has been online since November 2011. The objective of the website is to provide a platform to connect IT Security Professionals and amateurs to further communicate on important issues relating to vulnerability discovered, security patches available and much more. Maurihackers also provide news related to Cyber security, Information Security & Hacking.

The page is tied to the website, Maurihackers.info, which was created approximately five months later. If, indeed, the account is related to the Mauritian Attacker — the alleged founder of a hacking group called AnonGhost that became infamous for defacing websites during #OpIsrael — it’s fairly comical that their website includes a warning that it’s a crime to upload or change any information on their site. It’s not like there’s a disclaimer, “Hey Israel, we’re not associated with the Mauritian Attacker so please don’t deface us,” so yeah. Odd.

On July 19th, sixteen individuals were arrested in the United States for their alleged role in the PayPal 14 case and as we know now, again, thanks to Barrett Brown, two years later neo-Nazi, Andrew Auernheimer (a.k.a. Weev), contacted one of the defendants in an effort to silence/suppress anti-Pierre Omidyar sentiments over The Intercept’s monetization of Snowden documents and the 2010 financial blockade against WikiLeaks.

In chat messages posted by Brown, Auernheimer clearly tried to sell himself as an intermediary between the defendants and Peter Thiel in order to accomplish that.

There’s a lot more to the Thiel story, some of which I reported on previously in The Gatekeeper Files, and in the context of that report about the rise of the alt-right and these newly released chats, again, it’s important to note that Thiel never went away. Quite the contrary. And if anyone is familiar with the Hulk Hogan/Gawker story, you know how revengeful Thiel is.

In August 2011, there was an increase in the use of #OpIsrael. One account with the handle @YasirTineh repeatedly used it in tweets asking WikiLeaks if they were being pressured to suppress Israeli documents and demanding that Anonymous “man up” and start #OpIsrael.

The account kept tagging #LulzSec in most of their tweets which is funny but not funny due to the fact that at this point the leader of LulzSec/AntiSec had turned informant two months prior.

September 2011 — December 31, 2011

As protests continued throughout the Middle East, on September 25, 2011, a mass grave containing 1,270 bodies was uncovered in Tripoli. Months earlier, President Obama confirmed that he was exploring “military options” in Libya during a bilateral meeting with the Prime Minister of Australia:

I want to send a very clear message to those who are around Colonel Qaddafi: It is their choice to make how they operate moving forward, and they will be held accountable for whatever violence continues to take place there…we’ve got NATO, as we speak, consulting in Brussels around a wide range of potential options, including potential military options, in response to the violence that continues to take place inside of Libya..

Approximately two weeks later, a NATO-led coalition fired more than 110 missiles into Tripoli and Misrata, and in April they launched two guided missiles into Gaddafi’s resident. Not surprisingly, Gaddafi publicly accused NATO of trying to kill him, which they obviously were.

On October 20th, then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s well-thought-out plan came to fruition. Gaddafi was found in a drainage pipe outside of his hometown, Sirte, and killed by Western-backed rebels.

Even Obama admitted that “the biggest mistake of his presidency was the lack of planning for the aftermath of Muammar Gaddafi’s outster in Libya that left the country spiraling into chaos and coming under threat from violent extremists.” The country literally now trafficks in open market slavery.

Approximately two weeks after Obama made the “biggest mistake” of his career, an anti-Israel video was dropped by an alleged member of Anonymous (that some accounts later accused of being CIA) in response to Israel’s imposed blockade of the Gaza Strip and the “Freedom Waves to Gaza” flotilla, the latter of which was intercepted and boarded by the Israeli navy. The hashtag #OpIsrael was not included with the video.

In fact, Twitter Advanced Search shows that the hashtag was last used on November 7, 2011, and didn’t make another appearance until January 9, 2012 — again, taking into account that tweets, hashtags, and Twitter accounts have been deleted over the years. In totality, the hashtag was used approximately 39 times throughout 2011, which is highly insignificant in the big scheme of social media. Five Twitter handles account for the majority of times it was used:

2x by @Opisrael

4x by @WisdomsGrave

5x by @YUNUS9910

6x by @SylenceRose

7x by @YasirTineh

In November 9, 2011, the website “maurihackers.info” was also created — the same website mentioned earlier that includes a warning for anyone thinking about defacing their page. Again, it is unknown if the individual(s) behind this website or its connected Facebook page were linked to Mauritian Attacker.

The year ended with #AntiSec hacking Stratfor, the files of which were leaked to and published by WikiLeaks. Jeremy Hammond, other members of LulzSec/AntiSec, and Barrett Brown were eventually arrested, prosecuted, an imprisoned in connection with the FBI-led operation. From a previous article I wrote:

After the FBI essentially orchestrated the Stratfor hack through their informant Hector Xavier Monsegur (“Sabu”) and hackers breached, pilfered, and wiped the company’s servers clean, alleged AntiSec member Jeremy Hammond not only continued hacking systems for months, he unwittingly spied on other countries on the behalf of the U.S. government. According to the Daily Dot, Hammond breached (or attempted to) databases containing the ‘login credentials, financial details, and private emails of foreign citizens’ in over thirty different countries and every mark he hit was handed to him by Sabu…

The un-redacted list and chat logs later released both show that Sabu encouraged Hammond and others to attack the Governor of Puerto Rico, the Internal Affairs Division of the Military Police of Brazil, the Official Website of the Crown Prince of Kuwait, the Tax Department of Turkey, and the Iranian Academic Center for Education and Cultural Research. Other foreign targets included Syria, Colombia, Nigeria, Pakistan, Iraq and U.S. allies Australia and the U.K.

“What the United States could not accomplish legally, it used Sabu, and by extension, me and my co-defendants, to accomplish illegally,” wrote Hammond in August, 2013.”

#OpISIS Part 1

#OpISIS Part 2

Timeline

2008

September 4, 2018

• The company where SheliJ worked as a model, Pain vs. Guilt LLC, is founded

2010

January 1, 2010

• The Jester begins his campaign against Jihadist websites
• @SheliJ eventually tweets about how Jester was her “man, myth, legend” and “constant”

November 2010

• The Jester claims responsibility for the attacks on WikiLeaks’ website

December 2010

• The Tunisian Revolution begins
• In retaliation to Jester’s actions as well as financial institutions for blocking donations to WikiLeaks, hacktivists disrupt the websites of MasterCard, Amazon, and Paypal a.k.a. #OpPayback — this will later be known as the PayPal 14 case in the U.S.

2011

January 2011

• Barrett Brown connects with Anonymous via the Tunisian Revolution
• Anonymous disrupts government websites during the revolution while associates like Brown provided resources to Tunisian nationals and exiles via Anonymous IRC channels
• The spirit of the Tunisian Revolution spreads to other countries
• At least four individuals in the U.K. are arrested in connection with #OpPayback

February 2011

February 2–3, 2011

• Supporters of the Egyptian president stage a bloody battle in Tahrir Square; President Mubarak resigns eight days later

February 3, 2011

• The hashtag #OpIsrael is used for the first time on Twitter in reference to the hashtag allegedly being overheard in an anon IRC

February 4, 2011

• Then CEO of HBGary Federal, Aaron Barr, boasts to Financial Times that he spied on and infiltrated Anonymous
• Anonymous responds by hacking HBGary emails which contain, among other shady things, a presentation created by Palantir and HBGary on how to take down WikiLeaks
• Barrett Brown later clarifies that Barr was also spying on Tunisian nationals and exiles, something that was hinted at in the Financial Times article

February 13–18, 2011

• The hashtag #OpIsrael IS USED by two others accounts (besides Feb. 3 guy) shows up in connection with Anonymous (including @AnonymousFrance)
• https://archive.ph/aRv2m

February 14, 2011

• The “Day of Rage” protest takes place in Bahrain, an estimated 6K people participate in demonstration

February 20, 2011

– The death toll in Libya due to protests that started in January passes 230

March 2011

March 9, 2011

• The Tunisian court rules the party of former President Ben Ali is dissolved

March 14, 2011

• Saudi Arabia deploys troops and armoured vehicles into Bahrain to help quell the unrest

March 15, 2011

• Bahrain declares martial law; major unrest erupts in Syria after a teenage boy and his friends are arrested for graffiti denouncing President Assad

April 2011

April 7, 2011

• On April 7th, a few Twitter accounts start tweeting that it’s “Time for #OpIsrael and “All Israeli and pro-#Israel websies and entities are legit targets”

April 9, 2011

• Anti-government demonstrations spread across Syria; 22 are killed in Deraa

April 15, 2011

• Barrack Obama commits to military action against Libya’s Gaddafi

April 25, 2011

• Two air raids in three days hit Gaddaff’s premises in Tripoli, he accuses NATO of trying to kill him

April 28, 2011

• – Crackdown on protests by the Syrian government leaves 500 dead

May 2011

May 2, 2011

• The first @OpIsrael Twitter account is created

May 3, 2011

• LulzSec creates the Twitter account @LulzLeaks and announces “There is much to do — prepare yourselves”; the group, which was loosely affiliated with Anonymous, then goes on a 50-day hacking spree

June 2011

June 4, 2011

• Syrian security forces kill at least 100 protestors in two days

June 7, 2011

• Lulzsec and Sabu target the FBI-affiliated company, Infragard
• Sabu gets busted, turns snitch and starts AntiSec; hacks continue

June 22, 2011

• LulzSec creates a new Twitter account, @LulzSec

July 2011

July 5, 2011

• A facebook page called “Mauritian Hackers Society” which will later be linked to the Maurihackers.info website is created

July 19, 2011

• Major arrests in the PayPal 14 case go down in the U.S.

August 2011

August 1, 2011

• The Egyptian army brings in tanks and violently retakes Tahrir Square
• During the month of August, multiple twitter users like @YasirTeneh and @brit_newsman collectively direct a number of tweets about leaking Israeli documents and/or “opisrael” towards LulzSec, WikiLeaks and Anonymous

September 2011

September 25, 2011

• A mass grave containing 1270 bodies is found in Tripoli

October 2011

October 20, 2011

• Gaddafi is found and killed resulting in the country spiraling into chaos, violence, and open-market slavery

November 2011

On around November 6, 2011

• Anonymous takes down sites of the Israeli government in protest against blockage of Gaza #AntiSec used as hashtag again Sabu had turned informant at this point

November 7, 2011

• The last time the hashtag #OpIsrael is used in 2011; it won’t be seen again until January 9, 2012

November 9, 2011

• The maurihackers.info website is created

November 13, 2011

• After wide ranging protests against the governing military government in Egypt, the interim government bows to growing pressure as violences leaves 33 dead and more than 2,000 injured

November 29, 2011

• Egyptians vote in record numbers in the country’s first free ballot for more than 80 years

December 2011

• A new government is sworn in by Egyptian Kamal Ganzouri who was appointed prime minister by the military rulers
• The Stratfor hack takes place and emails are later sent to WikiLeaks; FBI informant continued giving Jeremy Hammond targets after this and which led to Jeremy Hammond and Barrett Brown’s incarceration