Porn reportedly has a stronghold on terrorist-owned laptops. Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, former head of the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency, revealed in his new book that laptops belonging to an al-Qaeda faction in Iraq were what initially tipped him off to the alleged presence of tons of porn. That branch of al-Qaeda, he said, ultimately became ISIS.
"We were facing a despicable foe, one who would rape and pillage women and children, boys and girls, behead for fun, all while watching pornography on their laptops," Flynn writes of his experiences in Iraq in the mid-2000s, according to an excerpt obtained by ABC News. "In fact, at one point, we determined that 80 percent of the material on the laptops we were capturing was pornography."
Former counter-terrorism officials confirmed the heavy porn presence to ABC News Thursday. Though they couldn't vouch for Flynn's 80 percent estimate, they did offer more details as to the alleged nature of said porn. "Some of it was really bad, and it was all over the map," one former analyst said. "Some of it was kids, animals."
Another official, referred to as a "senior" member of law enforcement, suggested the 80 percent figure might even be a little too conservative. "There has yet to be a case where some crazy porn stuff hasn't come up," the official said, referencing terrorism cases both domestic and abroad involving both ISIS and al-Qaeda members. "It never fails."
But this certainly isn't the first time the seemingly disparate worlds of pornography and terrorism have collided. An Anonymous-affiliated hacker took control of multiple ISIS-operated Twitter accounts last month and filled them with gay porn and LGBT pride images in response to the tragic Orlando nightclub shooting. "I did it for the lives lost in Orlando," the hacker toldNewsweek. "Daesh [ISIS] have been spreading and praising the attack, so I thought I would defend those that were lost."
