ISIS Fighter Mistakenly Reveals Location in Tweets

New Zealander is apparently unfamiliar with geotagging
By John Johnson,  Newser Staff
Posted Jan 1, 2015 5:33 PM CST
ISIS Fighter Mistakenly Reveals Location in Tweets
In this file photo, demonstrators chant pro-Islamic State group slogans as they carry the group's flags in Mosul, Iraq.   (AP Photo, File)

A New Zealander who left home to fight with ISIS in Syria made it pretty easy for authorities to track his movements—he tweeted happily away as "Kiwi Jihadi" with his geotag tracking turned on, reports the Guardian. The mistake by Mark Taylor, also known as Abu Adbul-Rahman, was revealed by a Canadian open-source intelligence group called iBrabo. It was able to pinpoint his movements in Kafar Roma in October and in al-Taqbah last month. In fact, iBrabo even zeroed in on the house he stayed in the week of Dec. 3.

Taylor apparently figured out that he was leaving a trail of digital breadcrumbs and eventually deleted 45 tweets. His Twitter account has since been suspended. Taylor left his home country in 2012 and burned his passport, but he'd been trying to get a new one recently, reports the New Zealand Herald. The Twitter gaffes will make that unlikely. "Taylor eager for the fame of being a violent jihadist took to twitter to get attention for his exploits," says an iBrabo statement cited by TVNZ. "His statements and twitter missteps have solidified his involvement with ISIS and will provide the evidence should he ever try to return to New Zealand." (Also not great with Twitter: the NYPD.)

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