The person identified as @shamiwitness on Twitter and considered one of the "most influential" accounts supporting the Iraqi terrorist group IS (Islamic State) was often quoted by prominent newspapers and researchers. Channel 4 from UK put out a story on Wednesday claiming that @shamiwitness was an Indian based out of Bengaluru working for an "Indian conglomerate" in the city.
Most of them began to find his views through Twitter and his blog, which would write passionate pieces in defence of the IS and its leader Abu Bakr al Baghdadi. The last post written on June 15, 2013 makes a case for Baghdadi who was in the middle of a dispute with Al Qaeda's leader Ayman al Zawahiri. In an earlier post on May 14, he attempts to explain civil war in Syria and was clearly on side of the Islamist rebels who were advancing against government forces at that time.
Even prominent newspapers like The Telegraph and Daily Mail in the UK would quote @shamiwitness as an authentic voice of the IS. When Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, which worked with the Syrian government to remove chemical weapons, @shamiwitness was furious. He called the award a "humiliation" to those killed by chemical weapons used by troops loyal to Bashar al-Assad's government in Syria. "They are insulting the martyrs, intentional humiliation of the victims. This is an award to Assad and Putin," he was quoted by the newspapers as an authentic voice supportive of the Islamic rebellion. Michael Kelly from the Business Insider also interviewed him in January this year after contacting him on Twitter. He described @shamiwitness was operating out of Syria. He called him "a civilian tweeting about Syria since November 2011".
Other influential scholars who track Islamic fundamentalism and conflict often cited him. Oxford scholar Aymenn al-Tamimi, often cited @shamiwitness and also called him a "friend". Many of them claimed that they had no clue where he was situated, but found his views interesting. None of them suspected that he could be an Indian working out of Bengaluru as an executive with a private firm.
Aaron Y Zelin, a respected researcher, who tracked Islamic fundamentalism on 'Jihadology' also cited @shamiwitness in his work. "I didn't know who he was until Channel 4's report," Zelin told Hindustan Times. "I thought he was British and I re-posted something he wrote on TwitLonger in March 2013." But Zelin took off @shamiwitness' views from his site after the Egyptian coup. "I took it off in November since he became extremely radicalised and (I) did not want to be associated with the type of content he was posting," Zelin said.
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