In the aftermath of the Paris attacks, certain hacker groups have declared a digital war on ISIS, with mixed results. But it looks like a hacker had been helping the FBI track and hunt down hackers with alleged ISIS ties even before the Paris attack in mid-November. A former member of the Rustle League hacker collective confessed on Twitter that he recently assisted the FBI, with his actions resulting in a bombing that left one prominent ISIS hacker dead.
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“5hm00p” is the name of the hacker who helped the FBI track down and kill Junaid Hussain, a hacker turned ISIS fighter. 5hm00p was previously known for hacking the Anonymous Twitter accounts.
“What the f*** have I done,” he said on Twitter on Sunday morning, as noted by Motherboard. More than 15 hours later, he launched a tirade of tweets at the FBI, which were soon deleted.
“I lost a lot of good friendships and my f***ng honor,” 5hm00p tweeted “I’m so embarrassed to show my face in public now because of this.”
“I f***ing helped you MURDER him. Do you know how I feel now when I sleep at night?” he added. “Regardless that he was a terrorist and an animal I sure as f*** felt betrayed.”
Junaid “TriCk” Hussain, who was a member of the hacktivist group Team Poison before he left the U.K. to join ISIS In 2013, was killed in a drone strike on August 24th along with two of his bodyguards. Hussain reportedly became the leader of the Islamic State Hacking Division after joining ISIS.
According to 5hm00p, the FBI forced him to help unearth information about Hussain’s whereabouts by threatening his family. The agency declined to comment, but a source familiar with the events that led to Hussain’s death confirmed that 5hm00p did help the U.S. government locate Hussain.
It’s still not clear whether 5hm00p’s confession is accurate, but it has been met with positive remarks from the community. Unlike a similar case where a hacker-turned-informant contributed to the arrest of several of his former colleagues, 5hm00p’s actions seem to have been related only to ISIS hackers.
Motherboard says that if the story is true, then the hacker will make history as being involved in the first operation that targeted and killed a hacker classified as a combatant.
