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OTTAWA — A military intelligence report warns of an “emerging trend” in which terrorist groups use social media to harass the family and friends of Canadian military personnel.

The Department of National Defence is refusing to say how prevalent the problem is. However, the report emerges amid growing concerns about the safety of military personnel in Canada and other Western countries at a time when personal information is readily accessible online.

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On Sunday, the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) issued a hit list of 100 U.S. military members, publishing their names, addresses and photographs and urging supporters to kill them.

ISIS has claimed the personal information was stolen from U.S. government computers, but some analysts say the data was already publicly available online and probably culled and compiled by the militant group’s propagandists.

The Canadian military intelligence assessment, written in January and obtained by the Citizen using the Access to Information law, says social media has provided “terrorists with a valuable and useful tool with which to generate fear and anxiety as a means of intimidating governments or societies at large.”