New Delhi: Islamic states has posted images of 100 American military service members online, and asked its brothers staying in America to kill them.
The Pentagon said that it was investigating the matter after the information was posted on the internet.
A pentagon official, on condition of anonymity told a news agency, “I can't confirm the validity of the information, but we are looking into it."
"We always encourage our personnel to exercise appropriate OPSEC (operationsIslamic State posts online names, US addresses and photos of '100 American military personnel', asks 'brothers in US' to kill them security) and force protection procedures," the official added.
A group calling itself "Islamic State Hacking Division" posted the pics and wrote in English that it had hacked several military servers, databases and emails and disclosed the information on 100 members of the US military so that "lone wolf" attackers can kill them.
In a report, New York Times said it did not look like the information had been hacked from US government servers.
The daily also quoted an unnamed Defence Department official as saying most of the information could be found in public records.
The Times quoted officials as saying “The list appeared to have been drawn from personnel mentioned in news articles about air strikes on Islamic State,”
The Islamic State forces control parts of Syria and Iraq and have been targeted in US-led air strikes.
Addressed to disbelievers, Christians and "crusaders" in America, The posting included what according to group were the names, military service branch, photos and street addresses of the individuals. The posting includes the military rank of some but not all of those named.
