Pentagon Notifying Service Members On ISIS 'Hit List'

The Pentagon spent the weekend notifying service members who appeared on an Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) "hit list," and bases where they are stationed have contacted local law enforcement agencies in an effort to increase police patrols in the neighborhoods where they live," reports CBS News national security correspondent David Martin.

In addition, after being asked by the Pentagon, YouTube took the hit list down from its website, Martin says.

ISIS (short for to the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria) urges its followers and sympathizers in the U.S. to kill American service members on the list. They're identified with names, photos and addresses.

Pentagon officials say the list appears to be drawn from public sources -- everything from newspaper interviews to Facebook pages that connected them, sometimes incorrectly, with the war against ISIS. Right or wrong, it's a threat.

"This is very disconcerting, obviously, to the families," Gen. Carter Ham said. "The specific families that were identified in this release, but more broadly across the armed services, that those who engage in social media, that that information now can be corrupted and used by a terrorist organization to threaten them."

ISIS is defenseless against American air strikes which by the latest count have killed more than 8,500 fighters and struck more than 5,300 targets, but it is fighting back by using social media to threaten U.S. military personnel at their home bases.

"Well, I think this is exactly the kind of tactics that we are starting to see increase, not only here but in other parts of the world, where these Islamic extremist terrorist elements are looking to different so-called soft targets," Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, D-Hawaii, said.

There are about 180 Americans who are known supporters of ISIS but there's no way of telling how many other radicals might be inspired to act by the ISIS list.

Over the weekend, CENTCOM sent out a warning through Facebook to military personnel, that we are "operating in a new norm in which cyber threats are real" and any CENTCOM teammate or family member could be targeted. It suggested they "maintain a heightened sense of vigilance."