2 Metro Detroit Men Among Troops On ISIS 'Hit List'

DETROIT (WWJ) - Two men from the metro Detroit area are among 100 military members whose names, photos and addresses were posted online by a group calling itself the Islamic State Hacking Division.

The group said it was posting the information to encourage Muslims in the U.S. to kill the military members.

"We need to take this very seriously and it's very scary because it's bringing the war back home," Retired Army Lt. Col. Rocky Raczkowski told WWJ's Charlie Langton.

Raczkowski said one service member on the list is from Lake Orion while another is from Dearborn, which has the highest concentration of Arab Americans in the United States.

Pentagon officials said there's no indication the information was obtained through a government data breach. The information, in fact, was readily available to the hackers.

"ISIS has been perusing social media and capturing this data. It's information that's on the free market, in the free airwaves of Facebook, Twitter and social media sites," said Raczkowski. "And the sad part is now so many of us put pictures of our friends and our colleagues on the internet and it's very easy for some crazy person or even ISIS to just peruse Facebook sites that don't have the proper settings and find individuals that have actually served in the military, and then find their addresses and post it as a hit list."

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The Defense Department said it's unclear whether the hacking group is actually related to the Islamic State group whose fighters and buildings in Iraq and Syria have been bombed by U.S. and coalition aircraft. Regardless, Raczkowski said if his name was on the list, he would definitely be worried.

"Especially with ISIS asking anyone that is a friend or even a foe of ISIS to take action is basically like the mob taking a hit list on someone that would testify against a criminal actor," said Raczkowski.

"Look at it like this," he continued. "We all know the story of Chris Kyle ["American Sniper"] now, and Chris Kyle was working with an individual here in the United States that was a former veteran, and he basically stated that he had PTSD and he took Chris Kyle's life. So, if that could happen -- and Chris Kyle was very public about his military service -- it could happen to any of us at any time. It's very important for anybody that served in the military to always have their head on a swivel, to make sure of their surroundings, and to be a little more cautions about what they share on these social media sites."

Families of service members named by the group have been notified and reminded to heed normal security precautions in using social media.

A federal investigation is ongoing.