Sowing fear

John and Beth (we’ve agreed not to use last names because a group associated with ISIS is threatening to kill them) were laughing easily one July morning. They were on vaction, the weather felt perfect, and their daughter had texted good news about their sick grandchild.

After breakfast on the patio at Panera, they wandered back to the city, stopping at a garage sale where Beth found a jogger stroller for $5. Then their daughter called.

She sounded almost amused. Special Agent Jeremy Resar from the Chicago FBI office had just knocked on the door wanting to speak to them. He left his number. What did he want? she wondered. John and Beth didn’t know.

They pulled into the shade of a quiet suburban street, put a cell phone on speaker mode, and dialed Resar’s number.

“You both are on the ISIS hit list for America,” he said. Hackers affiliated with the terror group had posted their names on social media as targets for lone-wolf agents. Resar told them the FBI was calling “out of an abundance of caution.”

“We were floored, shocked. The whole scenario was so ridiculous in our minds,” Beth said. Neither she nor her husband could think of a reason they’d be on a list.

“The commonality,” Resar said, “seems to be church affiliation and being a Christian.” Their conversation lasted another 15 minutes.

At home in rural Illinois, the men of their close-knit family gathered: no more unlocked doors and keys left in cars, no more going to the door without checking the window first. Their lives had changed.

I spoke with Resar, who confirmed that he met with John and Beth, and two other FBI agents who said they could not give me details because of the sensitive nature of the issue—but SITE Intelligence Group, Kronos Advisory, and others confirmed that thousands of ordinary Americans like John and Beth have now learned that their names are on hit lists of ISIS-allied groups. Some believe it is simply a scare tactic. Others are afraid. Beth said, “It is as if we live in another country. … You can’t quite return to normal life.” The couple is looking into buying handguns for security.

For years terrorist groups have published lists of targets for lone-wolf agents and sleeper cells. In 2013, al-Qaeda published the names of nine writers, politicians, and pastors in its English-language magazine Inspire. “A bullet a day keeps the infidel away,” the headline ran. A targeted cartoonist died in the Charlie Hebdo attack almost two years later.

In September 2014, the Islamic State’s spokesman, Abu Muhammad al-Adnani, posted an online-audio message: “Kill the disbeliever whether he is civilian or military, for they have the same ruling. … Both of them are considered to be waging war.”

In 2015, Junaid Hussain, in an ISIS propaganda speech directed at the United States, said, “We are in your emails and computer systems … passing on your personal information to the soldiers of the khilifah … who will strike at your necks in your own land.”

ISIS has bragged about hacking Facebook. It has published hit lists with the names of American soldiers, drone operators, government workers, and Western imams it views as heretics. One list came out in early August with the names, addresses, and official emails of 700 U.S. soldiers.

‘Kill the disbeliever whether he is civilian or military, for they have the same ruling. … Both of them are considered to be waging war.’ —Abu Muhammad al-Adnani, Islamic State spokesman

But other lists released by FBI-verified, pro-ISIS hacking groups, such as the Islamic Cyber Army, seem random, and with no purpose beyond spreading terror. The posts, found on messenger apps like Telegram, list members of a New Jersey church ministry group, members of the Arkansas Library Association, assorted Texans, and an elderly Mississippi woman who received an FBI visit at her home. A list of 3,600 New York City residents included personal details and a chilling message: “We want them dead. … Shut THEM Down.”

SITE Intelligence, a group that monitors jihadis, discovered a list of 1,700 Christians and Jews circulating on online pro-ISIS forums in early July. The Department of Homeland Security issued an alert, and government officials briefed religious leaders about ISIS scare tactics. Chicago FBI spokesman Garrett Croon told me the agency has a specific protocol for these situations: “If we receive information that someone is in danger or a victim of a threat, it is our responsibility to meet with that person.”

Croon would not explain how the FBI knew whom to contact and what constitutes a credible threat. He said agents work closely with state and local police and ask potential victims to be aware of their surroundings, protect personal information, and be quick to call the police if they observe anything suspicious. Michael Smith, founder of Kronos Advisory, a consulting firm on counterterrorism, downplays the threat. He says none of the government officials on the earlier lists have been killed—and they are the more strategically valuable targets: “The purpose of this is just to cause fear.”

‘We are all on Satan’s hit list and we’ve been on his for a long time, so what’s new? We’re ready to go.’ —Norman & Betty

That’s exactly the reaction of Nancy, an older woman who lives in the Chicago area. She received a visit from FBI agent David Malone, also from the Chicago office. Malone showed up in the early afternoon on a warm August day. Nancy and her husband had just driven home from their lake house, and she was exhausted. She had hosted a two-week family reunion there.

She was shuffling through mail and her husband was unpacking the car when Malone walked up the driveway. He showed his badge and ID and asked to speak to Nancy. Her husband brought her outside, and Malone handed her a piece of paper with one line of printing on the top: her name, address, phone number, birthday, email address, and church.

This was the information ISIS had on her, he said. She was on a hit list.

“I did have some nightmares the first few nights,” Nancy said. “We always lock the doors every night, but I don’t think that would stop them if they wanted to throw a bomb in.” She said she keeps remembering the San Bernardino shooters, a California couple who professed loyalty to ISIS and massacred 14 people.

Another woman, Karisa, works in PR at a rural Christian college and was confused when she discovered she was on the list: “Why me?” FBI agent Tony Rausa called her in the middle of a quiet working day to tell her he had already informed local police. She didn’t need to change anything. He didn’t know why she was on the list, didn’t think she should worry, and couldn’t see a common denominator among the thousands of names on the list.

“The agent was pretty casual,” Karisa said. As soon as she got off the phone, she told her boss and the president of the college. They joked about getting her a security guard. Then, just as she had planned, she walked across the parking lot to a sun-drenched picnic bench and ate her lunch, warmed-over spaghetti from Sunday night. “The Lord’s just given me peace of mind,” she said in her soft, slow voice. “I haven’t lost any sleep.”

Neither have Norman and Betty. Married for 51 years, the longtime missionaries discovered they were on an ISIS kill list in July. That’s when an FBI agent from Colorado Springs drove two hours to their tourist town, with its 360-degree view of the mountains and one stoplight. At their son-in-law’s house, where Norman and Betty live, the agent said their names and address are among 6,000 on one ISIS hit list. They assume it’s because they support a Pakistani pastor and work with Muslims in India. The agent said it was unlikely they would be touched.

“Well, I thought we were pretty safe up here in the mountains,” Betty said, and they are not concerned anyway: “We are all on Satan’s hit list and we’ve been on his for a long time, so what’s new? We’re ready to go.”