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Anonymous hacktivists' have named and shamed around 9,200 ISIS members - prompting claims the shadowy group's actions are hampering the war against extremists.

Earlier this week, masked hacktivists handed Twitter a list of accounts thought to be operated by Islamic State fighters, supporters and recruiters, before calling on the social network to shut them down.

An industry source told us spooks had "concerns" about shutting down social media accounts.

Social media profiles one of the best ways of gathering intelligence on fighters in Syria and Iraq.

Experts and hackers also warned this drive to silence ISIS might simply drive it underground into the "dark web" where no-one can reach them.

A separate source with a close understanding of intelligence agencies and Twitter told us spies were frustrated with attempts to silence jihadis.

"Twitter will generally remove accounts when asked by the police," he said. "But MI5 and MI6 are furious when this happens, because it removes their ability to watch jihadis and gather intelligence."

We have spoken with hackers who were on the verge of identifying a key ISIS recruiter when contact suddenly went dead.

They had posed as a wannabe fighter and been invited deep into the online sanctum of ISIS.

They were planning to infect targets with "malware" capable of recording video footage to identify key recruiters to the police or military.

But suddenly many of the extremists they were hunting on Twitter and other social media disappeared.

"Deleting ISIS accounts is not hurting them, but it is wrecking our attempts to carry out surveillance operations," the hackers told us.

"ISIS are vanishing. If they go into the dark web, they are beyond anyone's reach."

(Image: Getty Images)

The hackers showed us chat records they had managed to obtain from ISIS supporters' social media accounts.

One showed fighters in Syria telling superiors they had run out of ammunition - a useful piece of tactical information.

They hoped to gather much more data and hand it to the military, before the Anonymous campaign shut down their sources.

"All Anonymous has done is make ISIS more tech-savvy and cut off the information supply," they said.

(Image: Twitter)

Experts told us that silencing jihadis on social media closed down a key source of intelligence.

Jamie Bartlett, director of the Centre for the Analysis of Social Media at the think tank Demos, said: "It is definitely important that Anonymous be involved in the war against ISIS because they are very good people to have as part of the fight.

"But on the whole, I think it's better to see what ISIS are doing. There are very few ways to gather intelligence about what's happening in Syria."

Abu Abdullah Britani, the nom de guerre of a British man who claims to be fighting in Syria, said social media blocks would not stop the Islamic State from spreading its message.

"The Twitter ban is useless and isn't going to silence our call or message," he said.

"Ban as many times as you like - our voice will just get louder and louder."

Taliban fighters in Afghanistan have previously given away their whereabouts by forgetting to turn off Twitter's geolocation function.

Last year, American spooks asked Twitter to keep ISIS supporters' accounts open.