ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – An Egyptian software engineer who says he has repeatedly hacked into data banks of the Islamic State (ISIS), said that videos of beheadings and other crimes the group has shown the world is only the tip of an iceberg.
Ahmad Samara told Al-Arabiya.net on Wednesday that the terrorist group takes great care in making its videos, using directors and producers – in some cases apparently foreign movie professionals.
“I entered all the ISIS files and I found where they store their beheading, burning and killing videos,” Samara said in the interview. “I was appalled by what I saw.”
He said he hacked into the radical group’s servers several times, the last time on February 3.
The Egyptian software engineer said he succeeded in tracking the ISIS server through the numerous websites the group has used to post its videos and other propaganda material.
He told the Arabic website that ISIS has stored many “appalling” videos of beheadings and killings that they have not posted anywhere yet.
He said he was especially angered at the publicly released video by ISIS showing captured Jordanian pilot Mouath al-Kasasebeh burned alive earlier this month in Syria.
“When the group burnt the Jordanian pilot my blood boiled and I decided one more time to hack their servers and this time identify myself, because I am no less than any of those officers who have lost their lives fighting terrorism,” Samara said, adding that ISIS had taken great care in producing the shocking video.
“Filming the burning of Mouath had taken a long time and the producer is seen shouting at them to take more takes for a better angle,” Samara said. “I saw foreign producers who spoke fluent English and from his accent I could tell that one of them was American,” Samara told Al-Arabiya.net.
According to Samara, ISIS has videos of the killing and burning of other foreign nationalities “that they have not shown yet.”
He said he watched the beheading of 21 Egyptian Coptic Christians on video a week before it was made public by the group, but that he did not know who they were because no one knew then that ISIS had Egyptian captives.
“The video must have been made at least a month before it was broadcast because what was made public was directed,” said Samara, adding that one of the victims was from Bengal. “I saw in the video the martyrs screaming as they are beheaded.”
Samara believes that at least five cameras must have been used in filming the beheading of the Egyptian Christians on a beach in Libya, which included sound effects.
He said that the last time he hacked the group’s servers he left a photo of the Jordanian pilot standing before his killers with a message that read: “Stand tall; you are a lion among dogs.”
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