A disillusioned former member of Dae’sh has passed a stolen memory stick of documents identifying 22,000 supporters in over 50 countries to a British journalist.
A man calling himself Abu Hamed, a former Dae’sh member, who became disillusioned with its leaders, passed the files to Britain’s Sky News on a memory stick he said he had stolen from the head of the group’s internal security force.
On it were enrolment forms containing the names of Dae’sh supporters and of their relatives, telephone numbers, and other details such as the subjects’ areas of expertise and who had recommended them.
One of the files, marked “Martyrs”, detailed a group of Dae’sh members who were willing and trained to carry out suicide attacks, Sky said.
Sky said it had informed the British authorities about the documents which were passed to its correspondent, Stuart Ramsay, at an undisclosed location in Turkey.
Western security sources said that if genuine, the files could be gold dust as they could help identify potential attackers and the networks of sympathisers behind them, and give insight on the structure of the group.
A selection of them was published in Arabic.
The defector, a former Free Syrian Army fighter who switched to Dae’sh, said the group had been taken over by former soldiers from the Iraqi Baath party of Saddam Hussein, who was ousted in 2003 after the US-led invasion of Iraq.
Some of the defector’s Arabic documents, posted on the Zaman Al Wasl Syrian news website, were forms issued by “Islamic State in Iraq and Sham, the General Directorate of Borders” and displayed personal details of each fighter, according to a review of some of the documents.
The forms included answers to 23 questions such as assumed name, birthplace, education level, extent of Sharia learning and previous jobs, as well as details about the individuals’ journey to Dae’sh and whether they were potential suicide bombers or more traditional fighters.
