This ISIS fighter accidentally tweeted his secret location

This ISIS fighter accidentally tweeted his secret location
(Image credit: Screenshot/TIME)

A New Zealander reportedly fighting with ISIS goofed up on Twitter. He unknowingly geotagged his tweets from Syria, which embedded GPS data into each post and revealed the secret location of where he's staying.

Mark Taylor, also known as Abu Abdul-Rahman, deleted 45 tweets earlier this week after discovering the problem, The Guardian reports. But it was too late, because Jeff Weyers, who runs open-source intelligence group iBrado, was able to pinpoint Taylor's exact house in al-Taqbah, a Syrian town near an ISIS stronghold.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up
Explore More
Julie Kliegman

Julie Kliegman is a freelance writer based in New York. Her work has appeared in BuzzFeed, Vox, Mental Floss, Paste, the Tampa Bay Times and PolitiFact. Her cats can do somersaults.