Police and FBI in New York City are investigating photographs posted on social media of what looks to be ISIS supporters taking selfies on their mobile phones outside of a museum and at different places around New York, in what appears to be either a joke or warnings of a forthcoming terrorist attack, CBN News reported on Thursday.

One of the images found shows an unknown male using a facemask along with a scarf containing the ISIS logo, standing outside New York’s Upper East Side museum, with a description that said, “We are in your own Backyard Oh worshippers of the cross!” Such images have been used by the Islamic State (ISIS) terrorists in the past as part of their propaganda to reach out and encourage lone wolf attacks in major cities and this time, possibly somewhere in New York City.

Cyber-intelligence firm GIPEC statement

Eric Feinberg, the co-founder of GIPEC, a cyber-intelligence firm that monitors Internet terrorism-related hashtags and other terrorist propaganda stated that such images are used to reach out to those supporters who wish to commit a terrorist attack to take action and also to promote fear among innocent citizens. He also stated that social media like Facebook and Twitter need to do a better job in filtering out such propaganda by ISIS and other terror entities.

Feinberg stated that while social media has stated that they are doing a better job at monitoring ISIS related activities and continue to work on the problem, he and his team are catching these posts within seconds and minutes after they are posted.

A few days later, another image appeared with an individual showing a smart-phone displaying the ISIS brand on the phone’s screen, with the rebuilt One World Trade Center, the tower that replaced the New York City landmark World Trade Center buildings that were destroyed due to the terrorist attacks by al-Qaeda on Sept.

11, 2001.

The New York City police department told CBN News that they are aware of the photographs and that while they are looking into the matter, they as of now, have no credible threats of attacks anywhere in the New York City area although, that can change at any time.

Previous ISIS threats

In December of 2017, a pro-ISIS propaganda poster exhibited a phony portrait showing NY Police Department Chief, James O'Neill, being held captive, showing him kneeling before a “masked terrorist” as well as other photos of supporters of ISIS in New York’s Times Square.

ISIS with its propaganda warnings threatened the United States numerous times during the Christmas and New Year’s season and while no major terrorist attacks occurred, there were two notable terror-related incidents where in October, one ISIS supporter murdered eight citizens in Manhattan while in December., another ISIS supporter was unsuccessful when he tried to set off a homemade pipe bomb in a New York City subway terminal not far from Times Square.

Terrorism experts state that since ISIS has lost ground and momentum with its strongholds in Iraq and Syria, it now appears that ISIS is relying on motivating lone-wolf sympathizers to launch attacks to show that prove, that ISIS it's still relevant and persuasive.
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