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 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. 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. 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. 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. 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.
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.