Cold Open
The following presentation is not suitable for young children. Listener discretion is advised…
A black Chevy Cobalt SUV pulled into the parking lot of the Curtis Culwell community center in Garland, Texas. The parking lot was full, but the Chevy wasn’t here to park.
Its driver, Elton Simpson, 30, switched off the ignition and turned to his passenger and roommate, Nafir Soodi, 34.
Here we are.
Nafir nodded.
It was the evening of May 4th, 2015. The two men stretched away the stiffness from their 16-hour drive, which had brought them from Phoenix to here. They’d only stopped for bathroom breaks, and to pray to Mecca. Otherwise, they hadn’t spoken much. They didn’t need to. Tonight’s plan had been in the works for months. They were long past the point of no return.
Elton took out his smartphone and opened Surespot, an encrypted application that ensured his communication wouldn’t be monitored by the US government.
He pulled up a conversation with his contact, a man who called himself Abu Hussain al-Britani.
We’ve arrived.
Al-Britani replied almost immediately.
Good. Follow the plan and do not waver, brothers. You will strike a blow against our enemies that will inspire all true believers.
We won’t let you down.
Elton put his phone away. He hoped this would prove to be true.
The event is ending soon, Nafir said.
Elton scanned the community center. There didn’t seem to be a stepped-up security presence. Just a few security guards. Easy.
The center was being rented by Pamela Geller. Geller was a Long Island mother of four. In the wake of 9/11, she became convinced that all Muslims were plotting to take over America. So, she co-founded the American Freedom Defense Initiative. The Southern Poverty Law Center quickly deemed it a hate group.
Tonight, Geller was hosting an event inviting cartoonists to draw the most outrageous image of the Prophet Mohammed for a $10,000 cash prize. Why? To some Muslims, any depiction of the prophet is inherently taboo.
It was a provocation. And Elton and Nafir were here to put a stop to it.
Elton pulled up his Twitter account, where he fired off one final Tweet to his followers.
May Allah accept us as mujahideen. #TexasAttack. He knew that soon, this hashtag would be a top trending topic.
Finally, he turned to Nafir.
Let’s go.
The men grabbed their gear—backpacks, body armor, handguns, and two AK-47 assault rifles. Then, Elton gunned the engine and tore across the parking lot. He skidded up to the Curtis Culwell Center’s entrance, which was blocked off by cones.
Immediately, two security guards approached. Elton and Nafir bolted out of the SUV and aimed their rifles. One of the guards ran for cover. Elton opened fire, hitting the guard in the calf.
But the other security guard, an off-duty Garland traffic cop, didn’t retreat. He drew his pistol, advanced, and opened fire.
A shocked Elton felt the bullets slam into him. One snuck between the padding of his body armor and entered his rib cage. He dropped his rifle and slumped to the ground. Then, he watched the security guard shoot Nafir repeatedly. Nafir fell, too.
The last thing Elton saw was a SWAT van drive up. Heavily armed SWAT officers streamed out, aimed their weapons at Elton and Nafir, and opened fire. The last thing Elton thought was that they’d failed.
Nearly 7,000 miles away, in Raqqa, Syria, Abu Hussain al-Britani was glued to American news channels, waiting for any word of the attack. Finally, a CNN anchor broke in with an update:
We’re getting reports of an attempted mass shooting at an anti-Islamic event. Let’s go to Garland, Texas, where two shooters are dead.
Al-Britaini was stunned. The 21-year old had just sent two men to their deaths. But there was no time to mourn. He had to capitalize on the social media momentum.
He pulled up his own Twitter and fired off a Tweet:
“Allahu Akbar!!!!! 2 of our brothers just opened fire at the Prophet Muhammad art exhibition in texas! #TexasAttack.”
By doing so, al-Britani amplified Elton and Nafir’s attack to his nearly 2000 followers.
But who was Abu Hussain al-Britani?
Once, he was one of England’s top hackers. Now, was proving himself to be one of the Islamic State’s most potent weapons.
On this episode: Muslim hacktivism, British rappers, white supremacists, the Islamic State, and the evolution of cyberterrorism. I’m Keith Korneluk and this is Modem Mischief.
You're listening to Modem Mischief. In this series we explore the darkest reaches of the internet. We'll take you into the minds of the world's most notorious hackers and the lives affected by them. We'll also show you places you won't find on Google and what goes on down there. This is the story of Junaid Hussain, aka Abu Hussain al-Britani, and Team Poison.
Act One
Ten years earlier, in 2005, Abu Hussain al-Britani didn’t yet exist.
Back then, he was just an 11-year-old from Birmingham, England named Junaid Hussain. He was the son of Pakistani immigrants. Junaid’s parents—their names haven’t been published—were prominent members of the Pakistani community in Birmingham. His father drove a cab for long hours every week, enough to put a roof over their heads, and hopefully, one day fund his son’s college education.
Junaid’s father wanted a better life for his son. This was why he saved up enough to buy Junaid a computer. It was a luxury item, and he meant for his son to use it for his schoolwork.
Junaid had other ideas.
Junaid was bright, but he wasn’t particularly studious. He was a shy kid. Despite his shyness, his main ambition in life was to become a rapper. He also loved technology—in fact, that was the one topic of conversation he enjoyed besides rap.
At first, he used his computer to play online games. One day, Junaid tried to log onto his account, only to learn that the password had been changed. Someone hacked him.
Junaid was pissed and he wanted revenge. He Googled hacking techniques. Although he never did find out who hacked him originally, he hacked dozens of his fellow gamers, quickly becoming one of the most loathed members of the community. The power rush that hacking gave him quickly eclipsed his enjoyment of the games.
By the time he was 15, Junaid had grown tired of online gaming and its petty squabbles. He joined a few online hacking groups and forums, but they were all small-time and had difficulty retaining members.
Junaid was ready for something more substantial.
Junaid was never particularly religious. But Junaid was a second-generation Pakistani-English from Birmingham. Racism was a part of daily life. In fact, many studies have found Muslims to be England’s most discriminated-against minority group. And since 9/11, this only intensified.
Junaid would later say that his political awakening began when he watched videos of children being killed in Palestine and Kashmir.
Palestine and Kashmir are both disputed territories with large Muslim populations, and both regions have seen atrocities committed against those Muslim populations.
Junaid related to the Muslims in Palestine and Kashmir. Yet both places were thousands of miles away from Birmingham. There seemed to be little Junaid could do to help.
Instead, Junaid would begin his activism by targeting an enemy much closer to home. During Junaid’s 15th year, England would give rise to a dangerous new extremist group that wanted Junaid and his fellow Muslims gone: the English Defense League.
The UK had participated in the American-led invasion of Afghanistan since 2002. In 2009, a unit of the British Army, the Royal Anglian Regiment, returned home from Afghanistan. To mark the occasion, the regiment held a parade in the town of Luton.
In response, a Muslim group called Al-Muhajiroun organized a protest. The protest was meant to object to England’s participation in the War on Terror.
But al-Muhajiroun wasn’t just protesting the war. The group wants to establish an Islamic caliphate inside Great Britain. It’s since been labeled a far-right extremist group.
News of the al-Muhajiroun protest spread, and certain Britons were outraged—specifically, young white men. In response, hundreds of young British white men descended on the parade for a counter-protest.
Soon afterward, a mosque in Luton was firebombed.
In the weeks that followed, this anti-Muslim counter-protest inspired followers around Great Britain. Almost all young white men, they denounced the supposed “Islamification” of their country. The movement began calling itself the “English Defense League.” For its symbol, it co-opted the shield of St. George, England’s legendary protector.
A 15-year-old Junaid watched these developments with disgust. Al-Muhajiroun certainly didn’t speak for all British Muslims. The EDL was just a bunch of racist creeps using al-Muhajiroun to further their agenda.
Junaid wanted to do his part to stop them.
At first, Junaid took his fight to the streets. He joined in local demonstrations against the English Defense League.
Yet he wasn’t satisfied with being just another voice in the crowd. Junaid wanted to make a difference.
This was when his hacking experience came into play. True, Junaid hadn’t yet distinguished himself as a leading British hacker. But he had crossed paths with several other teenage British Muslim hackers.
He knew they had sympathetic views—they were opposed to racism in all its forms. Junaid sensed that they just needed a leader to follow. Why not him?
Junaid started a website called Poison.org, then created his hacking alias: TriCk. He invited seven of his fellow British-Muslim hacktivists to join him. They had names like iN^SaNe, MLT, Phantom~, C0RPS3, f0rsaken, aXioM and ap0calypse, all spelled in leet speak.
They called themselves TeaMp0isoN, and they were determined to combat the anti-Muslim racism that infected their country.
It was a homegrown hacktivist group. There were just eight members to start. But soon that would change…
Team Poison found common cause with another hacker group called “Z Company Hacking Crew.”
Z Company was based in Pakistan. It was sympathetic to the plight of the Muslims from Kashmir and Palestine. Classified as a “patriotic hacking group,” It had been involved in a series of cyberattacks on websites in Pakistan’s rival, India.
So, Team Poision and Z Company joined up. In December 2010, members of both hacking crews began posting on Facebook pages belonging to organizations that were Zionist, right-wing, anti-Islamic, or all three.
The posts all had the same message:
On the evening of the 31st of December 2010 (New Years Eve), TeaM P0isoN and ZCompany Hacking Crew will clean up Facebook.
It was a threat.
Sure enough, on New Year’s Eve 2010, hundreds of Facebook pages for right-wing extremist groups like the English Defense League were erased from the Internet.
Junaid and his cohort continued their assault on the English Defense League. Two months later, Junaid hijacked the EDL’s main website and defaced it.
This website has been hacked by TriCk and TeaMp0isoN, the website read.
Below that was a rambling message from Junaid:
“I am an extremist. I try extremely hard to hack websites to raise awareness of issues, I’m a terrorist, I terrorize websites & servers, But the EDL are extremists too, they try extremely hard to kick Muslims out of the UK, and they are terrorists, they terrorize local Muslim communities & businesses – Myself & the EDL are both extremists & terrorists, but why do they want to kick me out? Because I follow a certain religion? I was born in UK, my skin colour may not be the same as yours but my passport colour is…
Junaid further claimed that he had the personal information of the English Defense League leadership, and he was willing to publish it.
The details of how Junaid hacked into the English Defense League’s social media pages have never been released. But the hack was a huge win for Team Poison. And Team Poison was just getting started.
Junaid couldn’t help doing what most teenage hackers do—brag about his exploits online. He started a Twitter account where he posted as TriCk. His Twitter avatar was the face of a child with the Palestinian flag superimposed over it.
His Twitter account became a public record of his hacking. But it was also a dare to law enforcement: come and get me. Junaid was confident that he was untraceable.
On Twitter, his TriCk alter ego quickly attracted followers—and Junaid had a lot to brag about.
In June 2011, Junaid once again Tweeted as TriCk. This time, he sent his followers a link to Pastebin.
There, Juniad explained that Team Poison had hacked into the email server for Katie Kay, a PR executive and former personal advisor to British Prime Minister Tony Blair—a supporter of the War on Terror who had brought the UK into Afghanistan and Iraq.
This hack gave Team Poison access to Katie Kay’s entire address book and emails—including personal information for the prime minister and many of his inner circle.
"Tony Blair's Private Info is getting leaked tonight. Junaid Tweeted. So is his Personal Advisors, CV, and UK MPs & Lords who supported the war in Iraq. Tony Blair and his cockroaches are getting owned tonight. - War IS Terror."
That evening, as promised, Junaid uploaded the prime minister’s personal information, plus that of his associates, including his wife and sister-in-law. This included phone numbers, addresses, and even the prime minister’s personal National Insurance number—which is like an American social security number.
To Tony Blair and his inner circle, the public doxing was little more than a nuisance. But for Junaid and Team Poison, it only further increased their cred on the Muslim hacktivist scene.
For the rest of 2011, Junaid and Team Poison would continue their attacks on new targets.
In August 2011, police in Tottenham, were conducting surveillance on a 29-year-old Black man named Mark Duggan, whom they believed was a gang member and a drug dealer. On August 8th, undercover police forced the cab in which Duggan was traveling to pull over. When Duggan got out, police claimed he pulled out a gun. They opened fire, killing him.
Nearly every detail of the controversial killing has been disputed by Duggan’s family. In the days after the shooting, widespread public outrage led to looting in London and surrounding cities.
When the smartphone provider BlackBerry discovered that looters were using its encrypted SMS messaging service to coordinate their looting, the company agreed to cooperate with police to help track the looters.
Less than a day later, Team Poison took over BlackBerry’s company blog and defaced it with the following message:
You Will _NOT_ assist the UK Police because if u do innocent members of the public who were at the wrong place at the wrong time and owned a blackberry will get charged for no reason at all. UK police are just looking to arrest as many people as possible to save themselves from embarrassment.
Even more hacks followed. Team Poison defaced Croatia’s NATO website. It broke into a United Nations Development Programme server. It hacked into email accounts at the U.K. Ministry of Defense. It even worked with ‘Anonymous’ and other groups to leak a database with 26,000 credit card details that they claimed were obtained from a hack of Israeli websites
At this point in his hacktivist career, Junaid and his hacker pals weren’t particularly political. Yes, they fought anti-Muslim discrimination, but they offered little in the way of an alternate political ideology. When they did propose an alternate system, they advocated for anarchy.
With each success, Junaid and his TriCk persona gained more and more followers. Everyone wanted to know who TriCk really was, and what he really wanted. Junaid was being inundated with media requests to do interviews—all of them promising him anonymity.
In February 2012, Junaid finally agreed to his first interview with a Romanian software hosting and hacker news website called Softpedia.
In it, Junaid outlined the history of Team Poison, as well as his political awakening. He expressed his outrage at the political situations in Palestine and Kashmir. He discussed Team Poison’s long-term goals, besides the simple defacing of websites. He envisoned a future of donations, leaks, defacements, email hacks.
Of course, there was an elephant in the room. Journalist Eduard Kovacs asked Junaid if he was afraid that giving an interview might expose him to law enforcement.
100% certain the police have nothing on me, Junaid responded. I don’t exist to them, I’ve never used my real details online, I’ve never purchased anything. My real identity doesn't exist online. - and no I don’t fear getting caught.
Soon, Junaid would learn how wrong he was.
In April 2012, the UK agreed to extradite a radical Muslim cleric named Abu Hamza al-Masri and five of his associates to the United States. Among other things, al-Masri was accused of taking hostages in Yemen, and helping plan the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania that killed 224 people.
Team Poison responded by targeting the UK’s Anti-Terrorist Hotline, which citizens could use to report terrorist threats. Team Poison “phone-bombed” the hotline with hundreds of hoax calls. Each of them simply repeated the name “Team Poison” (robotic voice), over and over and over.
The phone bombing did indeed jam up the hotline. Days later Junaid broke into the London police’s phone system and recorded two police officers complaining about the hoax calls. Then he published the calls, adding insult to injury.
UK law enforcement was pissed, and it wanted to take this punk down.
It wasn’t like Junaid made it difficult for them to find. True, he’d taken precautions to conceal his identity, but he’d also Tweeted repeatedly about his exploits. By the time of the Anti-Terrorism Hotline hack, UK police were already well-acquainted with Junaid—or TriCk as they knew him.
Even though he had good reason to believe he was the subject of a police investigation, Junaid continued giving interviews as TriCk, taking credit for the Anti-Terrorism hotline phone bombing as well as Team Poison’s many other exploits.
On April 12, 2012, Junaid was sitting at his computer in his bedroom at his parents’ house when he heard approaching police sirens.
SFX: UK police sirens.
Soon, several cop cars pulled up. They were from the London Metropolitan Police’s eCrime Unit.
Junaid could guess why they were here. He yanked his computer cords out of the wall.
Junaid’s father entered and looked out the window. He saw cops get out of their cars and approach the house.
Junaid, what’s going on?
Junaid saw the shock and worry on his father’s face. How could he explain it?
There wasn’t time. He looked at the computer. He had seconds to trash the hard drive and erase any evidence of his online life. And could he really trash the computer his father had bought him?
SFX: knock.
Junaid Hussain! We’d like to talk to you.
Time was up. There was nowhere to run or hide.
Junaid knew he was caught.
But his fight was just getting started.
Act Two
Your lordship, my client fully admits to hacking the prime minister’s assistant’s Gmail, as well as the CTC phone bombing. But there was no malice. These were just pranks.
Junaid’s lawyer Ben Cooper looked over at him. Junaid offered a timid nod. Then he looked up at the judge, hoping he bought it.
It was four days after his arrest, and Junaid was sitting in the Westminster Magistrates’ Court, a modern marble and glass structure in the heart of London.
The judge, Peter Testar, turned to Junaid.
Mr. Hussain, since this is your first offense, I’m going to grant you bail. But you are accused of violating the Computer Misuse Act. I’m sure your solicitor has explained that’s a very serious charge. You should be under no illusions that you’ll avoid prison.
Junaid glanced over at his father seated in the gallery. At first, his father had been furious to hear that Junaid was using his expensive computer to cause trouble. But now, his Dad was worried sick.
Sentencing is set for July 27th. You’ll be under curfew until then.
SFX: gavel bangs
There were 104 days until Junaid’s sentencing. Junaid was adrift.
In the days following Junaid’s arrest, Team Poison disbanded. Nobody else wanted to risk meeting Junaid’s fate.
Not that Junaid had much taste for hacking these days. With Team Poison gone, Junaid felt ready to go straight. During those 104 days under curfew, he completed three A-level classes and secured his enrollment in London Metropolitan University, where he planned to study computer forensics—possibly to pursue a career in law enforcement.
When his sentencing hearing arrived, Junaid wrote a letter to the judge asking for leniency. His father and brother also wrote letters vouching for his character. His lawyer argued that Junaid should avoid jail altogether. The teen was showing remorse, had strong family support, and was committed to his future.
But the court was unconvinced.
The judge sentenced Junaid to a bit less than five months in prison, accounting for time he’d already spent under curfew.
Junaid just needed to get through those five months, and then he could move on with his life.
But Junaid’s relatively short prison stretch would be a pivotal moment in his life.
Junaid hadn’t stopped caring about anti-Muslim discrimination in the UK and around the world. But his experiences with Team Poison and the UK justice system left him disillusioned. Hacktivism no longer seemed effective. Direct action seemed like the only approach that could get results.
When Junaid went to prison, he sought protection from his fellow Muslim inmates. Many of those inmates held what would be considered extremist Islamic views.
Junaid would later say that his fellow Muslim prisoners showed him “enlightenment.” But his friends and fellow hackers would say that his prison experience radicalized him.
In early 2013, Junaid completed his prison sentence and returned to his parents’ house.
At first, Junaid still wanted to go straight and leave hacking behind. He began his university coursework. He started a website called illSecure.com. This was a training website that allowed security experts and hackers to test their skills in a legal setting.
But Junaid’s prison experience had also inspired him to take more political stances. Now, instead of advocating for anarchy like he had in his younger days, Junaid was spouting Muslim political ideology, both in person and online.
Gradually, Junaid lost contact with his old friends from the Team Poison days. He began making new friends online, ones with views more in line with his own.
One was Abdel-Majed Abdel Bary, 21. Born in London, he was the son of an Egyptian terrorist linked to Osama bin Laden. The younger Bary had grown up on a council estate and was a fledgling London rapper who went by the names “Lyricist Jinn” and “L Jinny.” Bary and Junaid knew each other from Junaid’s days as an amateur rapper.
More recently, Bary had fallen in with Anjem Choudary, a Pakistani-British militant Islamist who hoped to convince his fellow Muslims to take up arms against western Imperialism.
Another of Junaid’s new friends was Sally Jones. She was a 45-year-old mother of two and former guitarist for a small time 90’s all-girl punk band named Krunch. She’d had a difficult upbringinging— shortly after her parents’ divorce, her father committed suicide when she was 10. She left school at 16 and lived on welfare.
In the 2000s, Sally grew disgusted with the US- and UK-led War on Terror, and especially the invasion of Iraq. She began questioning whether her home country was worth living in.
Shortly after Junaid was released from prison, Sally contacted him. Despite their 25-year age difference, the two began a romantic relationship. Junaid encouraged Sally to convert to Islam, which she did in early 2013.
With these and other new friends, Junaid became more and more political.
His old nemesis, the English Defense League, was still active. Junaid continued attending EDL counter-protests around Birmingham.
At one protest in July 2013, a group calling themselves the Muslim Defense League rushed a line of riot police. Junaid was among them. He was arrested on suspicion of violent disorder, then released on bail.
This was the final straw.
At this point, the very prospect of living in England—a country that was currently occupying two majority-Muslim countries—sickened Junaid. Whatever future he might have had now meant nothing to him.
The time for half-measures was over. If he really wanted to combat anti-Muslim bigotry, he’d have to do it on the front lines. To Junaid, there was only one place to do that: the Islamic State.
The organization that started the Islamic State—or ISIS, or ISIL, or a bunch of other names— dates back to 1999, when it was founded by Abu-Musab al-Zarqawi in Jordan. Back then, it was a terrorist group called “The Organisation of Monotheism and Jihad.” They didn’t just want to drive Western invaders out of the Middle East. Zarqawi’s group wanted to found a modern theocracy, one governed by medieval Islamic law.
After the September 11th Terrorist attacks and the US Invasion of Iraq, Zarqawi’s group swore allegiance to Osama bin Laden and became informally known as al-Qaeda’s Iraqi chapter, or “al-Qaeda in Iraq.” In Iraq, it carried out insurgent attacks against coalition forces.
In 2006, al-Qaeda in Iraq made the bold move of establishing the Islamic State of Iraq, a brand new country covering Iraq’s six Sunni-majority governates. This was mostly a symbolic gesture, as the Islamic State of Iraq didn’t actually govern most of that territory. But it was also an important recruiting tool. Now, everyone unhappy with the coalition occupation of Iraq had a new cause to join.
During the American troop surge of 2007, al-Qaeda in Iraq was decimated. Zarqawi was killed in an airstrike, as was his successor. By 2010, the group’s new leader was a nearsighted theology student named Abu-Bakr al-Baghdadi. Overall, al-Qaeda in Iraq was a shadow of its former self. Al-Qaeda would eventually sever all ties with it.
But 2011, would provide an opportunity to reverse its fortunes. Across Iraq’s northern border, the secular dictatorship of the Assad family had ruled Syria for yeara. In 2011, the Arab Spring protests spread to Syria, threatening to overthrow President Bashar al-Assad—and opening the door for militant Islamic groups to gain a foothold. Al-Baghdadi sent guerilla fighters to Syria, where they established a resistance movement called the Nusra Front. In 2013, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Nusri Front merged to form the Islamic Republic, aka ISIS, or ISIL.
By the time Junaid Hussain was arrested in the summer of 2013, the Islamic Republic wasn’t yet a major political force. It only held a few Syrian cities, and it was relatively unknown outside of Iraq and Syria.
The capital was Raqqa, an ancient city in the Syrian desert home to about 300,000 people. Originally it was held by forces loyal to Bashar al-Assad. Then, it became the capital of the Syrian opposition, and finally it became the capital of the Islamic Republic.
Sometime in the fall of 2013, Junaid, his friend Adbel-Majed Abdel Bary, and his online girlfriend Sally Jones all made the same decision: they were going to Raqqa.
Obviously, this had complications. All three had families and lives in England. Junaid would have to leave behind his parents and brother. Bary had a mother and five siblings. Sally had her two sons, ages 14 and 10. Sally decided to bring her younger son, JoJo, with her.
But the next concern was, how to get to Raqqa? A distance of almost 3,000 miles as the crow flies.
It’s not clear exactly how Junaid, Bary, and Sally Jones got to Syria. All we have to go on are their own social media posts and the recollections of acquaintances. Nothing has been verified.
We don’t know the route Junaid traveled to Syria. We don’t know how he financed it. We don’t know if he said goodbye to his parents and brother, or if he did, what he said.
We do know that Junaid and Bary traveled together. Most likely, they took the route common to foreigners who joined the Islamic State in those days—they went from London to Amsterdam, Amsterdam to Turkey, and crossed Turkey’s southern border in Syria.
According to a friend, Junaid and Bary arrived in Syria two days after leaving England, where they linked up with Sally Jones and her son, JoJo. According to Sally herself, this was the first time she and Junaid met in person. It was also the day they got married.
To mark the occasion, Junaid and Sally both took new names. Junaid became known as Abu Hussain al-Britani, a nod to his British heritage. Sally became known as Umm Hussain al-Britani.
In Arabic, these names were called “kunyas.” In French, they’d be called noms de guerre, or names of war.
Junaid also changed his Twitter page to reflect his new identity. The profile photo of the child with the Palestinian flag superimposed on its face was gone. Now, Junaid himself appeared. Far from the shy, pudgy teenaged hacker, now he was gaunt and had a buzzcut. He wore a bandana covering his face, and he pointed an AK-47 at the camera.
But changing their names and getting across the Syrian border was just the first challenge. Getting to Islamic State territory would be even trickier. According to Tweets made by Adbel-Majed Abdel Bary in February 2014, the three wannabee Islamic Republic recruits were soon captured by the Free Syrian Army, the militant group that was trying to overthrow the Assad regime. According to Bary, FSA detained the trio in the Syrian province of Idlib and tortured them for seven months. In August, seven months later, Sally Jones Tweeted that the FSA had finally released her, her husband, and their friend Bary, and that the trio had made it to the Islamic State’s capital of Raqqa.
Junaid, Sally, and Bary’s arrival in Syria happened at a pivotal moment in the history of the Islamic State.
In the summer and fall of 2014, the Islamic State launched a massive military campaign to capture more territory in Syria and Iraq. It grabbed dozens of major Iraqi cities, including Tikrit and Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city. By the time Junaid arrived, the Islamic Republic controlled a territory larger than the state of Indiana, and it ruled 8 million people.
This conquest came with a violent and bloody crackdown on westerners who had the misfortune of being stuck in this region. In August and September, the Islamic Republic shocked the world by publishing videos of its members beheading American journalists like James Foley and Steven Sotloff, and British aid workers like David Haines and Alan Henning.
These killings were meant to shock and provoke, but they also had another purpose: to recruit.
One of the beheaders became known as Jihadi John. He was later identified as a British citizen named Mohammed Emwazi. Like Junaid, he’d grown disillusioned with British society and moved to the Islamic Rebublic to fight for his cause.
Shortly after they arrived in Raqqa, Junaid and Sally were settling into their new apartment when Emwazi summoned them to a meeting in an Islamic Republic command center—a former school that had been repurposed for war.
It was the first time they would meet Emwazi. Junaid and Sally admired him and were eager to impress him—here was someone who had actually spilled blood for the cause.
At the meeting, Junaid, Sally, and Emwazi were joined by about a dozen other new recruits to the Islamic Republic. All of them were foreigners, from places other than Iraq or Syria. Most were from England like Junaid and Sally, although some were from Sri Lanka, Australia, and elsewhere.
Emwazi cleared his throat and began the proceeding.
You should be proud of yourselves. You’ve all made a sacred commitment to the Caliphate—much more than most of our brothers and sisters would do. But now, it’s time to serve.
Emwazi outlined his plan. These twelve foreigners would make up the core of the Islamic State’s international recruiting efforts. Emwazi went around the room and assigned tasks for everyone. In Sally’s case, she’d be focusing on recruiting other British women via social media.
Finally, Emwazi got to Junaid. Before Emwazi could assign his task, the 20-year-old interjected.
As I’m sure you know, I have extensive experience as a computer hacker. I can use this skill to steal sensitive information and hurt our enemies.
Emwazi smiled.
I have bigger plans for you.
Junaid looked over at Sally. What did that mean?
Was Emwazi going to send him on actual terror missions? Sure, his Twitter profile picture might show him with an AK-47, but he’d never actually fired a gun.
Emwazi saw Junaid’s concern.
Relax. We’re not going to throw you to the wolves. But you’re far too valuable to be a just a hacker anymore. You will be in charge of the Caliphate’s entire cyberwarfare program.
Junaid’s stomach clenched. This wasn’t what he’d signed up for.
But there was no turning back. Now, Junaid would be waging war on the Islamic State’s enemies. And he was certain to get blood on his hands.
Act Three
Sir, you’d better take a look at this.
It was Monday, January 12, 2015 at CENTCOM’s Communications Integration and Public Affairs department, located at MacDill Air Force Base, on a peninsula that juts out into Tampa Bay.
CENTCOM stands for “Central Command.” It’s one of 11 command units for the US military, controlled by the Department of Defense. In 2015, among other things, CENTCOM was responsible for overseeing US combat operations in Iraq and Syria.
A sergeant had just come up to CENTOM’s spokesman, Major Andrew Aranda, and she looked worried.
As CENTCOM’s spokesman, Major Aranda had many different duties. His office mainly provided press releases that updated the public on the war’s progress. With the rise of the Islamic Republic in the previous summer and fall, CENTCOM’s PR department had certainly been busy.
The sergeant brought the major to a computer screen, where CENTCOM’s Twitter account was displayed.
The account’s profile photo had been changed to a masked Islamic militant. There was a caption that read, “I Love You, ISIS.” Below that was a signature—CyberCaliphate.
Fuck me, Aranda thought. Their Twitter account had been hacked. This was everything Aranda feared.
The hack itself was bad. Worse than that, it proved that the Islamic Republic had a newfound ability to wage cyberwarfare. Add that to the list of headaches the war on the Islamic Republic was causing him.
Get on the phone with Twitter and have them give us back our account. Then call the FBI.
Twitter suspended CENTCOM’s Twitter account less than an hour after the hack. But the damage was done. The Islamic Republic had scored a major public relations victory.
For Junaid Hussain, aka Abu Hussain al-Britani, hacking CENTCOM’s Twitter was a much-needed win early in his tenure as the Islamic State’s top hacker.
He’d started with what he knew—hacking into social media accounts and defacing them. Or at least one of his hackers did. It’s unknown if Junaid actually carried out the CENTCOM hack, or if it was someone he recruited.
After the meeting with Mohammed Emwazi, Junaid found himself in a leadership role. True, he’d founded Team Poison and corralled its hacktivists. But now, he was responsible for a lot more.
This was why he’d started small, with a simple website defacement. It gave CENTCOM a black eye, and it announced the CyberCaliphate as a major new weapon in the Islamic State’s arsenal—Junaid had come up with the name “CyberCaliphate” himself.
Again, we don’t know if it was Junaid who carried out the CENTCOM hack. But we do know that he began to farm out the Cyber Caliphate’s hacks to sympathetic hackers around the world.
Thanks to social media, Junaid had no shortage of potential recruits. Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram were full of people who reposted Islamic State propaganda, beheading videos, and more.
One of these was named Ardit Ferizi. He was a Muslim from Kosovo who was studying in Malaysia.
Online, he went by the name “Th3Dir3ctorY.” He maintained a website that hosted beheading videos and other pro-Islamic Republic content.
Ferizi was also an amateur hacker who admired Junaid Hussain, aka Abu Hussain al-Britani. He knew about Junaid’s hacker past, and he wanted to impress the Islamic Republic’s top computer expert.
In June 2015, Ferizi hacked into a database owned by a major US retail company—its name has never been disclosed. This gave him access to more than 100,000 customers and their data, including email addresses, credit card numbers, and other identifying information.
Ferizi scanned the customer data and identified about 1,300 of them as members of the US military. He passed along the information to Junaid, who gleefully Tweeted it to his few thousand followers. Ferizi was later arrested by the FBI.
But defacing websites and doxing members of the military was a small part of Junaid’s projects for the Islamic Republic.
In addition to overseeing hacking projects for the Islamic Republic, Junaid was also responsible for recruiting and planning real world terrorist plots.
Using his Abu Hussain al-Britani persona, Junaid scoured the Internet for potential Islamic Republic sympathizers.
But this strategy had a flaw. Junaid often found recruits via their public social media posts—which were also available to the FBI. Almost all of Junaid’s non-hacking operations would be infiltrated by the FBI.
His first two known recruits were Elton Simpson and Nafir Soodi, whom we met at the beginning of this episode.
Simpson was born in Illinois, then moved to Phoenix, where he converted to Islam. In 2010, Simpson was convicted of lying to federal agents about his plans to move to Somalia and participate in a “violent jihad” there.
So, Simpson was already prone to recruitment.
His roommate, Nafir Soodi, was born in Garland, Texas and later moved to Phoenix. While he had been arrested for drug possession and driving while intoxicated, he’d never done anything violent.
Junaid contacted Simpson sometime in early 2015. Both men were outraged by Pamela Geller’s “Draw Mohammed” cartoon contest. It was easy for Junaid to convince Simpson that something needed to be done about it.
Simpson and Soodi’s attempted mass shooting at the Curtis Culwell Center was the first terrorist attack the Islamic Republic ever carried out on US soil.
The FBI was well aware of Simpson and Soodi’s plan. The FBI had already been monitoring Simpson in the weeks leading up to it. An undercover agent posing as an Islamic radical had been in contact with Simpson the entire time, and even followed Simpson and Soodi to the community center the night of the attack—but did nothing to stop it.
The failure of the Garland attack didn’t discourage Junaid and the Islamic Republic. In the weeks that followed, Junaid encouraged several more of his online contacts to carry out their own “lone wolf” terrorist attacks.
Up next was an Ohio college student named Munir Abdulkader. Junaid encouraged Abdulkader to kidnap a member of the US military and film himself beheading him, and even identified a veteran as a potential target. This plan was eventually scrapped. Instead, Junaid and Abdulkaer planned for Abdulkader to shoot up a police station. Police arrested him before he could attack.
After him came a trio of Massachusetts-based radicals named David Daoud Wright, Nicholas Alexander Rovinski, and Usaamah Abdullah Rahim. In April 2015, Wright published a document on his Twitter calling for American Muslims to murder their fellow citizens, specifically police officers. When police confronted Rahim in a parking lot in Roslindale, Massachusetts, Rahim attacked them with a knife. Police shot and killed him, and later arrested the two others.
Finally, there was 20-year-old Justin Nojan Sullivan. Under Junaid’s guidance, he purchased an AR-15 assault rifle and planned mass shootings at bars and nightclubs in North Carolina and Virginia. He hoped to kill as many as 1,000 people. He was arrested at his home in September 2015 after telling an undercover FBI agent about his plans.
While the Islamic Republic took credit for all of these attempted terrorist attacks, they were PR victories at best. None of them were actually successful. In each case, the FBI was aware of the plans well before they happened, and foiled them.
But the FBI knew that arresting the terrorists themselves wouldn’t stop these attacks—something had to be done about the man planning them.
CENTCOM agreed, and happily obliged.
Junaid was certainly aware of the danger he was in. All of the Tweeting and hacking had made the CyberCaliphate and Junaid himself high-value targets for the US military.
On August 13th, 2015, CENTCOM launched a drone attack on Raqqa intended for Junaid. Instead, the drone killed three civilians and injured five.
It wasn’t immediately clear that the attack was intended for Junaid, but it was eye-opening. Now, just the simple act of going outside could be deadly.
In response, Junaid and Sally never left their apartment without their son, JoJo—effectively using the 12-year-old as a human shield.
But one night, almost two weeks after the first drone attack, Junaid went out to an internet café accompanied only by his bodyguards. After his business at the café was finished, Junaid’s driver stopped at a gas station to fuel up.
As he did, an American drone overhead launched its missiles. This time, the strike was on target.
Junaid Hussain, aka Abu Hussain al-Britani, the Islamic Republic’s top hacker, was killed instantly.
Act Four
In the months after his son’s death, Junaid Hussain’s father was making breakfast at his home in Birmingham.
Obviously, the death of his son was shocking and devastating, but not entirely unexpected. Junaid’s father felt like his son had become a different person in recent years. He mourned his son’s loss long before his son’s actual death.
Junaid’s family just wanted to move on. But Junaid’s death attracted headlines around the world. The Hussains condemned their son’s actions, but the damage was done.
As Junaid’s father went to take a sip of tea, he heard a crash and the sound of breaking glass. Someone had thrown a rock through his living room window.
Junaid’s father raced outside, but the assailant was already gone. But it didn’t really matter who threw the rock.
Now, the once prominent members of Birmingham’s Pakistani community were seldom seen in public, so great was the shame they felt over their son.
But Junaid’s behavior affected countless people. In his early hacking career, Junaid and Team Poison scored a string of victories against Muslim discrimination. But battling the system came with jail time, and that time radicalized him.
During his brief time as the Islamic State’s top hacker, Junaid got several people arrested or killed. Even his closest friends and family met
Abdel-Majed Abdel Bary had little to offer the Islamic Republic beyond his being a propaganda tool. At one point, Tweeted a photo of himself holding a severed head with the caption, “Chilling with my homie, or what’s left of him!” It’s unknown if he actually participated in any terrorist plots or executions.
After Junaid’s death, Bary decided he’d had enough of the Islamic Republic lifestyle. He wanted to return to his home in England–where his relatives’ home had been raided by police thanks to his activities.
Bary disguised himself as a Syrian refugee fleeing the Islamic Republic’s brutal occupation and crossed the border back into Turkey. When he attempted to return to England, he discovered that by joining the Islamic Republic, he’d been stripped of his UK citizenship. In 2020, UK police finally caught up to him in a small town in southern Spain, where he’d been hiding out with two other former Islamic Republic members.
Sally Jones and her adolescent son JoJo met an even worse fate.
Sally, aka Umm Husain al-Britani, was one of the Islamic Republic’s top recruiters of women to join the cause. The death of her much younger husband only further hardened her resolve. Using social media, she reached out to conflicted Muslim women living in the UK, and convinced dozens of them to travel to the Islamic Republic and join the fight. She was also a prolific poster herself.
You Christians all need beheading with a nice blunt knife and stuck on the railings at Raqqa, read one of her Tweets. Come here I’ll do it for you.”
This made her another high-value target to coalition forces. In June 2017, she was killed by an American predator drone near the Iraq-Syria border. Her adolescent son JoJo was with her at the time and died in the explosion as well.
In the end, Junaid’s skills as a computer hacker far surpassed his abilities as a terrorist. None of the actual terror plots Junaid concocted and organized could be considered successful.
Yet Junaid’s impact on the Islamic State and its techniques was undeniable. He was one of the first terrorists who used the Internet and social media as a recruiting tool. Today, the Islamic State and other terrorist organizations use these same techniques to fill their ranks.
Junaid’s terror plots might not have been successful, but his actions provided the template for the next generation of terrorists. They’ve moved online. And the Internet has made it much easier to do business–even for terrorists.
I’m Keith Korneluk and you’re listening to Modem Mischief.
CREDITS
Thanks for listening to Modem Mischief. Don’t forget to hit the subscribe or follow button in your favorite podcast app so you don’t miss an episode. This show is an independent production and is wholly supported by you, our listeners and the best way to support the show is to share it. And another way to support us is on Patreon. For as little as $5 a month you’ll receive an ad-free version of the show plus bonus episodes exclusive to subscribers. We also sell a great selection of merch if comfy hoodies, t-shirts and stickers is your thing. Click the link in the show notes. Modem Mischief is brought to you by Mad Dragon Productions and is created, produced and hosted by me: Keith Korneluk. This episode is written and researched by Jim Rowley. Edited, mixed and mastered by Greg Bernhard aka poisoned is how you’ll feel after dating him. The theme song “You Are Digital” is composed by Computerbandit. Sources for this episode are available on our website at modemmischief.com. And don’t forget to follow us on social media at @modemmischief. Thanks for listening!
Sources
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