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Rob Wainwright, head of the EU police agency, claimed it dealt a blow to ISIL’s ability to radicalise young Europeans.

The action — which involved forces from France, UK, Bulgaria, Romania, the Netherlands and Belgium — was focused on Amaq News Agency, one of the jihadist group's main propaganda outlets.

The ISIL mouthpiece was used to claim attacks in Paris, Brussels, Barcelona and Berlin.

Europol said Amaq has developed resilient hosting for its online activities and that the entire range of ISIL propaganda was available in at least nine different languages.

Wainwright said: “With this ground-breaking operation we have punched a big hole in the capability of ISIL to spread propaganda online and radicalise young people in Europe.

“I applaud the determined and innovative work by Europol and its partners to target a major part of the international terrorist threat prevalent in Europe today.”

But experts have cast doubt on the operation’s impact.

Charlie Winter, an expert on radicalisation and ISIL propaganda at King’s College London, said Amaq had since published more than a dozen ‘news’ items, albeit via a different channel to normal.

Europol says police agencies have been taking down ‘web assets’ of the media outlet since 2015.

It included specific operations in August 2016 and June 2017.

The agency says it hopes that latest action — which happened on April 25 and 26 — will help to identify the administrators behind IS media outlets and potentially radicalised individuals on European soil and beyond.</s>PARIS — Police in Europe, the United States and Canada have seized servers and data from Islamic State propaganda outlets in a multi-country operation aimed at tracking down radicals and crimping the group's ability to spread its violent message.

The two-day operation was the culmination of efforts started in late 2015, after co-ordinated ISIL attacks that killed 130 people in Paris, according to a statement from European police agency Europol.

Police notably targeted the ISIL-branded Aamaq news agency, as well as al-Bayan radio, and Halumu and Nasher news sites.

Aamaq spreads information online in at least nine languages and has been used to claim ISIL was behind attacks in multiple countries, from the 2016 nightclub attack in Florida to a deadly supermarket hostage-taking in southern France last month.</s>April 27 (UPI) -- European authorities said Friday they, along with the United States and Canada, have crippled the Islamic State terror group's online "propaganda machine."

Europol said the takedown was led by the Belgian Federal Prosecutor's Office and involved authorities from Belgium, Bulgaria, Canada, France, the Netherlands, Romania, Britain and the United States.

The operation disrupted the Islamic State's capability to produce propaganda over the Internet, Europol said in a statement Friday.

Officials said the simultaneous multinational takedown, which occurred between Wednesday and Thursday, targeted the group's Amaq News, al-Bayan radio, and Halumu and Nashir news agencies.

Amaq News, which Europol called the "main mouthpiece" of the Islamic State, has been used for years to claim terror attacks around the world -- including recent large-scale attacks in Paris, Brussels, Barcelona and Berlin.

Amaq provided content in nine different languages and gave users a wide range of online services, such as mailed newsletters and add-on extensions for web browsers.

'With this ground-breaking operation, we have punched a big hole in the capability of IS to spread propaganda online and radicalize young people in Europe," Europol Executive Director Rob Wainwright said.

Europol Commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos said the Islamic State, also known as Daesh, is losing territory on both physical battlefields and the Internet.

"We will not stop until their propaganda is entirely eradicated from the Internet," Avramopoulos said.

Authorities said data obtained by this week's operation should help identify administrators behind the terror group's media outlets, and potential militants.

Europol said it first began targeting the Islamic State's online capabilities at the end of 2015, when all European Union member states were notified about the rise of the Amaq News Agency.

In August 2016, EU Member States launched their first takedown of Amaq's mobile application and web infrastructure.</s>Law enforcement authorities from European Union member states including Bulgaria, as well as from Canada and the United States launched a joint action on April 25 2018 against the so-called “Islamic State” (IS) propaganda machine in order to severely disrupt their propaganda flow, EU police agency Europol said on April 27.

The takedown operation was coordinated by the European Union Internet Referral Unit (EU IRU) within the European Counter Terrorism Centre (ECTC) at the Europol headquarters.

Led by the Belgian Federal Prosecutor’s Office and with the support of Eurojust, the operation involved authorities from Belgium, Bulgaria, Canada, France, the Netherlands, Romania, the United Kingdom and the US in a co-ordinated effort to hinder IS’s central capability to broadcast terrorist material for an undetermined period of time.

The case started at the end of 2015 when Europol informed all EU member states about the rise of the Amaq News Agency and the technical resilience of the terrorist online infrastructure. Since then law enforcement agencies have, in a continuous joint effort, taken down the web assets of the media outlet, Europol said.

In August 2016, thanks to contributions from EU member states and non-EU countries, a first takedown was launched against Amaq’s mobile application and web infrastructure. This action forced the propagandists to build a more complex and secure infrastructure to prevent further disruption from law enforcement.

In June 2017, a second strike, led by the Spanish Guardia Civil and supported by Europol and the US, targeted part of the news agency’s web assets and infrastructure. The servers seized by the Guardia Civil allowed for the identification of radicalised individuals in more than 100 countries worldwide.

On April 25-26 2018, a simultaneous multinational takedown, coordinated by Europol’s EU IRU and with the support of Eurojust and the Belgian Federal Prosecutor, led to the seizure of digital evidence by law enforcement from Bulgaria (Cybercrime Department in General Directorate Combatting Organised Crime), France (SDAT-SDLC), Romania (Directorate for Countering Organised Criminality – Terrorism Investigation Unit with the support of the Romanian Intelligence Service), and the seizure of IS servers in the Netherlands (Dutch National Police – Internet Referral Unit together with the Belgian Federal Judicial Police – East-Flanders), Canada and the US.

Meanwhile, the United Kingdom (Counter Terrorism Internet Referral Unit) took the lead in the referral process of top-level domain registrars abused by IS.

“With this takedown action, targeting major IS-branded media outlets like Amaq, but also al-Bayan radio, Halumu and Nashir news, IS’s capability to broadcast and publicise terrorist material has been compromised,” Europol said.

Rob Wainwright, Executive Director of Europol, said: “With this ground-breaking operation we have punched a big hole in the capability of IS to spread propaganda online and radicalise young people in Europe. I applaud the determined and innovative work by Europol and its partners to target a major part of the international terrorist threat prevalent in Europe today”.

Initially giving the impression of an independent media outlet providing factual information on IS, Amaq was used in 2016 to claim the attacks in the Levant and all over the world, including the attacks in Paris, Brussels, Barcelona and Berlin, and more recently in Trèbes (France), Europol said.

Amaq News Agency is the main mouthpiece of IS. It was officially endorsed by the terrorist organisation in July 2017 and has since become the primary source of information regarding the remaining activities of IS worldwide, the police agency said.

Since 2015 Amaq News Agency has been launching its own software and has developed highly resilient online infrastructure hosting. As of December 2017, the entire range of IS propaganda is available in at least nine different languages, as well as a wide range of online services, such as mailed newsletters and add-on extensions for the most common browsers.

Law enforcement agencies involved expect that the data retrieved as a result of the takedown will help to identify the administrators behind IS media outlets and potentially radicalised individuals on European soil and beyond.

In the context of the EU Internet Forum, the EU IRU proactively monitors online propaganda activities of the listed jihadi terrorist organisations in the EU on a daily basis, including related websites, servers and applications disseminating IS propaganda.

Commissioner Julian King said: “This shows that by working together we can stamp out the poisonous propaganda Da’esh has used to fuel many of the recent terror attacks in Europe. For too long the internet has been open to terrorists and those who seek to do us harm: those days are coming to an end thanks to this type of co-ordinated global work”.</s>A website that police say was behind millions of cyberattacks has been closed following a series of international arrests.

Europol said Wednesday morning that it's shut down Webstresser.org, a page that carried out distributed denial-of-service attacks for a price, sometimes as cheap as $18.26 a month. The page had more than 136,000 users and carried out 4 million attacks by April, according to Europol, the European Union Agency for Law Enforcement Cooperation.

DDoS attacks are capable of taking out websites and servers by flooding an address with so many requests that it's forced offline. In 2016, the Dyn attack managed to temporarily shut down major websites like Twitter, Spotify and Reddit. Hackers need access to a massive amount of devices to carry out these attacks -- usually with hijacked internet of things (IoT) gadgets -- but websites like Webstresser.org could offer that service to anyone willing to pay.

That meant criminals didn't need the technical expertise to carry out massive cyberattacks on websites, opening the door to millions of new victims.

"Stresser websites make powerful weapons in the hands of cybercriminals," Jaap van Oss, the Dutch chairman of the Joint Cybercrime Action Taskforce, said in a statement.

On-demand DDoS attacks are available online, some from niche groups like a Grand Theft Auto mods community. Europol said Webstresser was the world's largest provider.

Webstresser had attacked banks, police, government and gaming websites before investigators shut the page down, Europol said. One requested attack used Webstresser to hit seven of the UK's largest banks last November, shutting down entire systems and causing hundreds of thousands of dollars in damages, according to The Guardian.

Americans made up the majority of targets and customers, according to Forbes.

Police involved with what they called Operation Power Off arrested the site's four alleged administrators in the UK, Croatia, Canada and Serbia. Officers also arrested top customers in the Netherlands, Italy, Spain, Australia and Hong Kong. The website's infrastructure, based in the Netherlands, the US and Germany, was also seized.

The organization had a dedicated Facebook page, where it posted memes and asked for "quality influencers" to help market its service on YouTube. The page also bragged about taking down servers for popular games like Fortnite and Player Unknown: Battlegrounds.

On YouTube, several guides were available showing anyone how they could launch a DDoS attack for cheap.

The investigation was coordinated by the Dutch police and the UK National Crime Agency, which also helped take down the two largest Dark Web markets last July.

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Follow the Money: This is how digital cash is changing the way we save, shop and work</s>PARIS – Police in Europe, the United States and Canada have seized servers and data from Islamic State propaganda outlets in a multi-country operation aimed at tracking down radicals and crimping the group’s ability to spread its violent message.

The two-day operation was the culmination of efforts started in late 2015, after co-ordinated IS attacks that killed 130 people in Paris, according to a statement from European police agency Europol.

Police notably targeted the IS-branded Aamaq news agency, as well as al-Bayan radio, and Halumu and Nasher news sites.

Aamaq spreads information online in at least nine languages and has been used to claim IS was behind attacks in multiple countries, from the 2016 nightclub attack in Florida to a deadly supermarket hostage-taking in southern France last month.

The operation was led by Belgian prosecutors and also involved authorities in the U.S., Canada, Britain, France, the Netherlands, Bulgaria and Romania.

While Europol said the operation “punched a big hole in the capability of IS to spread propaganda online and radicalize young people in Europe,” it didn’t shut down the propaganda altogether.

For example, Nasher continued to share IS statements and Aamaq reports Friday through channels on encrypted messaging network Telegram.

The Islamic State group has used sophisticated and ever-changing communications tools to spread its apocalyptic message to disillusioned Muslims living in the West, to persuade them to reject Western ideals of pluralism and tolerance. High-quality videos, complete with thrumming beats and slick editing techniques, have unlimited reach thanks to social networks. Extremists with gentle American accents narrate radio broadcasts aimed at U.S. internet users.

European authorities involved in the operation Wednesday and Thursday said it showed the importance of international co-operation in fighting online radicalization, which has helped fuel deadly attacks in multiple countries in Europe and the U.S.

It aimed “to destabilize this apparatus by seizing and dismantling servers used to diffuse IS propaganda and to identify and arrest its administrators,” the Belgian public prosecutor’s office said.

Two prior international police operations, notably targeting Aamaq’s mobile app and web infrastructure, paved the way for this week’s raids. One led by Spain’s Civil Guard that seized servers in Panama allowed authorities to identify radicals in 133 countries via their interaction with IS propaganda, according to Europol and a Civil Guard statement.

The operation came as more than 70 countries vowed to bolster efforts to stop financing for IS and al-Qaida. Participants at an international conference in Paris on Thursday promised to improve international co-ordination and transparency of money flows.

Bassem Mroue in Beirut and Aritz Parra in Madrid contributed to this report.</s>A joint operation to tackle the Daesh* propaganda machine was launched on April 25, 2018 by the law enforcement authorities of the European Union Member States, Canada and the US and coordinated by the European Union Internet Referral Unit (EU IRU) within the European Counter Terrorism Centre (ECTC) at the Europol headquarters.

READ MORE: AI to the Rescue: New UK Software Fights Daesh Propaganda Before It Hits the Web

According to the Europol statement, principal Daesh media outlets, such as the Amaq news agency, Halumu and Nashir news and al-Bayan radio were targeted by the law enforcement services. As the European Union Agency for Law Enforcement Cooperation specified, the terrorists' broadcasting capabilities had been curtailed.

READ MORE: Telegram Channel Run by Teenager Blocked in Italy Over Daesh Propaganda

"With this ground-breaking operation, we have punched a big hole in the capability of IS [Daesh] to spread propaganda online and radicalize young people in Europe. I applaud the determined and innovative work by Europol and its partners to target a major part of the international terrorist threat prevalent in Europe today."

Daesh*, a terrorist group which created a self-proclaimed caliphate state on the territories of Syria and Iraq, was defeated last year in both countries and has lost the control it once held over a considerable amount of territory in the Middle East. The group has also staged numerous offensives across the world, including the EU countries.

READ MORE: Daesh Running Out of Men, Using Women as Fighters, New Propaganda Video Shows

In an attempt to block the spread of the terrorist propaganda among Muslims in Europe and prevent the return of Daesh militants from Syria, the EU has been taking numerous steps, using legal and Internet means, as well as carrying out joint intelligence and police operations.</s>Internet servers linked to the so-called Islamic State (ISIS) have been seized by law enforcement officials in Canada as part of an international takedown of the terrorist group’s propaganda network.

Canada joined with the European Union and the United States in the coordinated police action that targeted the ISIS mouthpiece Amaq, Europol said in a statement released Friday.

The coordinated effort took place Wednesday and Thursday in Bulgaria, France, Romania, the Netherlands, the U.S. and Canada. The ISIS-branded al-Bayan radio and Nashir News were also targets.

“With this groundbreaking operation we have punched a big hole in the capability of IS to spread propaganda online and radicalize young people in Europe,” said Europol executive director Rob Wainwright.

Since arising in Syria and Iraq in 2014, ISIS has made heavy use of online propaganda, producing slick videos and graphics to spread its message of violence and incite terrorist attacks.

Andrew Ellis, a former senior Canadian Security Intelligence Service official, said in a 2016 speech that some of the Canadians who joined ISIS were part of the group’s propaganda wing.

“I would argue that would be equally as dangerous, maybe more, than someone who is joining the military wing. A lot of these young Western adherents to Daesh are put on the frontlines and die very quickly. Someone who is working in the propaganda wing can hurt us over and over and over again,” he said, using another name for ISIS.</s>Europe and U.S. also part of two-day operation aimed at tracking down radicals

FILE - In this Jan.23 2018 file photo, a French solider watches code lines on his computer at the French Defense ministry stand during the International Cybersecurity forum in Lille, northern France. Police in Europe and North America have seized servers and data from Islamic State propaganda outlets in a multi-country operation aimed at tracking down radicals and crimping the group’s ability to spread its violent message. (AP Photo/Michel Spingler, File)

Police in Europe, the United States and Canada have seized servers and data from Islamic State propaganda outlets in a multi-country operation aimed at tracking down radicals and crimping the group’s ability to spread its violent message.

The two-day operation was the culmination of efforts started in late 2015, after co-ordinated IS attacks that killed 130 people in Paris, according to a statement from European police agency Europol.

Police notably targeted the IS-branded Aamaq news agency, as well as al-Bayan radio, and Halumu and Nasher news sites.

Aamaq spreads information online in at least nine languages and has been used to claim IS was behind attacks in multiple countries, from the 2016 nightclub attack in Florida to a deadly supermarket hostage-taking in southern France last month.

The operation was led by Belgian prosecutors and also involved authorities in the U.S., Canada, Britain, France, the Netherlands, Bulgaria and Romania.

While Europol said the operation “punched a big hole in the capability of IS to spread propaganda online and radicalize young people in Europe,” it didn’t shut down the propaganda altogether.

For example, Nasher continued to share IS statements and Aamaq reports Friday through channels on encrypted messaging network Telegram.

The Islamic State group has used sophisticated and ever-changing communications tools to spread its apocalyptic message to disillusioned Muslims living in the West, to persuade them to reject Western ideals of pluralism and tolerance. High-quality videos, complete with thrumming beats and slick editing techniques, have unlimited reach thanks to social networks. Extremists with gentle American accents narrate radio broadcasts aimed at U.S. internet users.

European authorities involved in the operation Wednesday and Thursday said it showed the importance of international co-operation in fighting online radicalization, which has helped fuel deadly attacks in multiple countries in Europe and the U.S.

It aimed “to destabilize this apparatus by seizing and dismantling servers used to diffuse IS propaganda and to identify and arrest its administrators,” the Belgian public prosecutor’s office said.

Two prior international police operations, notably targeting Aamaq’s mobile app and web infrastructure, paved the way for this week’s raids. One led by Spain’s Civil Guard that seized servers in Panama allowed authorities to identify radicals in 133 countries via their interaction with IS propaganda, according to Europol and a Civil Guard statement.

The operation came as more than 70 countries vowed to bolster efforts to stop financing for IS and al-Qaida. Participants at an international conference in Paris on Thursday promised to improve international co-ordination and transparency of money flows.

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Europol announces a coalition comprised of seven European nations and the United States this week launched a cyberattack against ISIL propaganda websites, taking a number of them down.