Following the massacres on the streets of Paris last week, at the hands of Islamic militants in separate incidents, the “Anonymous” hacking group declared online war against the terrorists, vowing to take down Jihadi websites as revenge for the people killed, specifically in the Charlie Hebdo massacre.
Having announced their intentions the other day, the group claim they have crippled the French terror website ansar-alhaqq.net , which went along with the hashtag #TangoDown and the message, “Expect us. #JeSuisCharlie .”
While it’s not clear exactly how the group disabled the site, Anonymous has previously used a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) that overloads the website with vast amounts of data.
In declaring war on the Muslim terrorists — who exploit the internet and social media to promote their deadly intentions — a video clip was uploaded to the group’s Belgian YouTube account, and a figure wearing the group’s Guy Fawkes mask and a hood says in French in an electronically-distorted voice, “We are declaring war against you, the terrorists.”
On top of that, the group reportedly published a statement on Pastebin, entitled, “Message to the enemies of freedom of expression; Freedom of expression has suffered inhuman assault… It is our duty to react… We wish to express our condolences to the families of the victims of this cowardly and despicable act.”
In making their message abundantly clear, the hacktivists added, “We will fight always and everywhere the enemies of freedom of expression… Freedom of expression and opinion is a non-negotiable thing. To tackle it is to attack democracy. Expect a massive frontal reaction from us because the struggle for the defense of those freedoms is the foundation of our movement.”
As well as crippling the British Home Office’s website in 2012, Anonymous has also targeted government websites, as well as those of corporate and religious organisations.