Telegram the 'app of choice' for terrorists
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Washington
WHEN the Islamic State was seeking volunteers for a holiday killing spree in Europe, it sent word over its favourite social-media channel: the messaging service known as Telegram. "Christmas, Hanukkah, and New Years Day is very soon," began a Dec 6 posting on one of the terrorist group's usual Telegram bulletin boards. "So let's prepare a gift for the filthy pigs/apes."
Two weeks later, when a truck mowed down pedestrians at a crowded Berlin Christmas market, the group again used Telegram, this time to claim credit for the attack. On Friday, after chief suspect Anis Amri was killed in a Milan shootout, Telegram broadcast his posthumous video. The Tunisian migrant had fled Berlin and crisscrossed France and Italy before being stopped by Italian police looking for a burglary suspect. In his video he pledges allegiance to the Islamic State and issues a chilling warning to Westerners: "God willing, we will slaughter you."
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