A selfie slip-up let the US air force target and destroy an ISIL command post

 

It’s known that intelligence officers working for the US air force in Florida keep tabs on social media accounts and online forums where enemies dwell, and it seems those efforts can pay off—at least according to the story one man told his colleagues recently.

“It was a post on social media to bombs on target in less than 24 hours,” said US air force general Hawk Carlisle, speaking at an Air Force Association breakfast in Washington, D.C. on June 1. He said a surveillance group was “combing through social media” one day and saw “some moron standing at his command” in a photo posted “on an open forum, bragging about the command and control capabilities for Daesh, ISIL.”

“About 22 hours later,” he said, they had located the building, presumably a valuable ISIL command post, in the photo and sent three Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) missiles to destroy it.