A tight-knit group of Islamic State fighters that reportedly includes Melbourne's Neil Prakash claims it has again hacked the computers of US military personnel, publishing an extensive list of names and contact details and urging supporters to kill them.
The list was published via social media overnight by a group calling itself the Islamic State Hacking Division, which is believed to be led by British man Junaid Hussain, a close associate of Prakash.
In a message which accompanied the release of the list, the hacker, writing under his Twitter handle Abu Hussain al-Britani, said: "They have us on their 'hit list', and we have them on ours too."
The attack comes after reports last week that Hussain was third on a CIA kill list of Islamic State operatives, along with another British citizen, Raphael Hostey, a recruiter for the group who is also a close associate of Prakash and has named the Melbourne man as his "co-worker".
The only Islamic State members higher than Hussain on the kill list are the group's leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and Mohammed Emwazi, the extremist known as Jihadi John, the masked executioner who featured in a number of beheading videos.
Prakash, considered Australia's top Islamic State recruiter, immediately followed the posting of the list with his own message via social media, writing on Wednesday morning: "*IMPORTANT* Please follow and share ... Cyber war got em shook!"
Another supporter of the group then tweeted: "KILL THEM WHERE YOU FIND THEM AND ENSLAVE THEIR WOMEN."
Another tweeted: "This information is very useful for lone wolves to act and kill."
Hussain is believed to have played a key role in the online radicalisation of at least one of the men behind the attack on a Prophet Mohammed cartoon contest in Garland, Texas.
The list published overnight includes the names of more than 1400 people, the department or division where they are based, email addresses, postcodes and telephone numbers.
It also purports to include credit card information and addresses of air force and Department of State employees, and email exchanges between military personnel.
The information has not been verified.
A note accompanying the list, which is in the form of a spreadsheet, warns US military personnel that the Islamic State Hacking Division is "in your emails and computer systems, watching and recording your every move".
"We have your names and addresses, we are in your emails and social media accounts, we are extracting confidential data and passing on your personal information to the soldiers of the khilafah, who soon with the permission of Allah will strike at your necks in your own lands," it said.
In March, the monitoring organisation SITE Intelligence reported the same group claimed to have hacked information about US military personnel, releasing a list purported to contain names, photos and ranks.
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