Well known jihadist tweets location in Syria accidentally
A well known New Zealand jihadi fighting for ISIS has made a social media mistake while in Syria, accidentally tweeting with his geotagging still active.
Numerous sources online say the jihadist Mark Taylor, known as Abu Abdul-Rahman, forgot to turn off his geo-location while travelling across Syria using his account @M_Taylor_Kiwi.
The Daily Mail reports he tweeted 45 times and broadcast his changing location, giving vital intelligence information to government agencies.
A social media jihad monitor based in Canada known as Ibrabo claims to have captured all of the posts prior to their removal.
The site goes on to discuss what it believes is the value of the intelligence they contained.
The blog post Ibrabo states: "The benefit of material like this when examining foreign fighters is it allows investigators to establish the extent to which an individual is tied to a terrorist group like Daesh (ISIS)."
"In this manner they can better justify potential criminal charges against the individual and at the very least build grounds for their detention and investigation upon their return."
The post, which analyses the tweets and the activity of the fighter, claims that the tweets show that in October he was fighting in Kafar Roma, "an area which the Syrian Army confirmed had been occupied by pockets of foreign fighters from ISIS."
It added: "From his broadcasts during the first two weeks in October we know that his tweets ceased about the same time the Syrian army made a strong push into the area."
The Daily Mail reports Mark Taylor appeared on TV3's 60 Minutes in 2011 and had said he travelled to the Middle Eastern country to find a wife, but he was named on a list of Australian-based people of security interest.
The account @M_Taylor_Kiwi has since been suspended.
