Researchers stumble upon vast IS library on the internet

SCOTLAND Yard is investigating a vast library of propaganda used to attract Islamic State recruits, dubbed the “Caliphate Cache”, after researchers stumbled across it online.

The library of more than 90,000 items contains information on how to carry out terrorist attacks as well as material aimed at luring teenage “runaway brides” into joining the group.

Researchers for the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, a London-based think tank concerned with extremism, who uncovered the gigantic cache after the death of Abu Bakr al-baghdadi, the former IS leader, found it hosted on a complex web of decentralised servers, making it hard to expunge the material from the internet.

The library attracts about 10,000 unique visitors a month and is thought

‘The content available is incredibly dangerous. In the wrong hands you could plan any sort of attack’

to be one of the largest found in relation to IS. The researchers first uncovered links to the library on Twitter, in “sockpuppet” accounts – fake identities created for deception purposes – which emerged in the wake of Al-baghdadi’s death last October.

The material is in nine languages and references the Manchester Arena bombing in May 2017, the London 7/7 attacks in 2005 and 9/11 in 2001, with the aim of attracting young recruits and encouraging teenage girls to run away to become the brides of fighters.

Moustafa Ayad, deputy director of the ISD, said: “The content available is incredibly dangerous. In the wrong hands you could plan any sort of attack.

“We are talking about chemical weapons development, how to evade authorities and conduct kidnapping, bomb-making schematics – anything you could need as someone who was trying to learn how to conduct violence.”

Mr Ayad added that the ISD had alerted the Metropolitan Police as well as other international law enforcement agencies to the cache.

The Met Police said it had received the research and specialist officers were now investigating the library.