ISLAMIC STATE'S TOP TWITTER ACCOUNT OPERATED BY AN EXECUTIVE IN BANGALORE

NEW DELHI: The Twitter account bearing the name @ShamiWitness has been one of the most vocal voices online on the war in Syria. By 2014, ShamiWitness had channeled his/her support to the Islamic State, defending the militant group from detractors and offering support to those who wished to join the fight.

With over 20,000 followers and a polite tone, ShamiWitness became one of the most prominent Islamic State (IS) supporter accounts. In fact, in terms of numbers -- tweets that were seen over two million times a month -- ShamiWitness was perhaps the most influential of the IS-supporter accounts.

“Two thirds of all foreign fighters on Twitter followed him (Shami Witness). When a fighter's Twitter account is suspended, he often promoted the new one and urged people to follow it,” Britain’s Channel 4 noted.

Shami Witness had tweeted IS execution videos, including that of Peter Kassig, which he tweeted five times within minutes of it being uploaded to the internet.

On Thursday evening, Channel 4 News claimed to discover the identity of ShamiWitness. The Channel claimed that ShamiWitness is actually an executive named Mehdi living in Bangalore with a Facebook page full of "pizza dinners with friends and Hawaiian parties at work."

The Channel apparently contacted Mehdi, whose full name has not been revealed. "If I had a chance to leave everything and join [the Islamic State] I might have," Mehdi reportedly said, adding that "my family needs me here."

The Twitter account has since been deleted, sparking its own reaction on the social media site.