The Department of Defense is not taking the threat against American military personnel from Islamic State (ISIS) militants as seriously as it should, retired Army Maj. Gen. Bob Scales told Fox News.
ISIS recently posted online the names, addresses, and photos of service members, asking its "brothers residing in America" to kill them. The information was obtained through social media.
The Pentagon has previously warned military personnel and their families to remove information from such sites that could personally identify them to terrorists, but Scales said he thinks more should be done.
"This is a carefully concerted, orchestrated campaign to intimidate our service men and women, not only when they're in the combat zone but when they're at home," Scales said Monday on
Fox News Channel's "Your World with Neil Cavuto."
"They're not trying to put ISIS boots on the ground in-country. They're just trying to get some … lone wolf to do their dirty work for them."
Scales called the tactic "sinister," and noted that the world is far different than when he served nearly 50 years ago.
"When I came home from Vietnam, I came home. This is the Internet era, this is the era of social media," Scales said. Soldiers need social media even more than common citizens because they are gone so often and deployed to distant places, and need to be in contact with family and friends for support, he said.
© 2025 Newsmax. All rights reserved.