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 Leaks of such detailed information about Islamic State are rare
and give Britain's spies a potential trove of data that could help
unmask militants who have threatened more attacks like those that
killed 130 people in Paris last November.
A man calling himself Abu Hamed, a former member of Islamic State
who became disillusioned with its leaders, passed the files to
Britain's Sky News on a memory stick he said he had stolen from the
head of the group's internal security force.
On it were enrolment forms containing the names of Islamic State
supporters and of their relatives, telephone numbers, and other
details such as the subjects' areas of expertise and who had
recommended them.
One of the files, marked "Martyrs", detailed a group of IS members
who were willing and trained to carry out suicide attacks, Sky said.
Richard Barrett, a former head of global counter-terrorism at
Britain's MI6 Secret Intelligence Service, said the cache was "a
fantastic coup" in the fight against Islamic State.
 "It will be an absolute goldmine of information of enormous
significance and interest to very many people, particularly the
security and intelligence services," Barrett told Sky News.
Sky said it had informed the British authorities about the documents
which were passed to its correspondent, Stuart Ramsay, at an
undisclosed location in Turkey.
Western security sources said that if genuine, the files could be
gold dust as they could help identify potential attackers and the
networks of sympathizers behind them, and give insight on the
structure of the group.
Reuters was not able to independently verify the documents, given
their provenance. A selection of them was published in Arabic.
Islamic State militants claimed responsibility for the Nov. 13
attacks in Paris and the Oct. 31 downing of a Russian passenger
plane over Egypt's Sinai region that killed 224. They have promised
more attacks on the West and Russia. SUICIDE BOMBERS
Western leaders say Islamic State, which has proclaimed a caliphate
in the parts of Syria and Iraq it controls, now poses a greater
danger to the West than al Qaeda. It uses a militant interpretation
of Islam to justify attacks on its foes and the use of extreme
violence, including rape and beheadings, against those it sees as
infidels.
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The defector, a former Free Syrian Army fighter who switched to
Islamic State, said the group had been taken over by former soldiers
from the Iraqi Baath party of Saddam Hussein, who was ousted in 2003
after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.
Some of the defector's Arabic documents, posted on the Zaman Al Wasl
Syrian news website, were forms issued by "Islamic State in Iraq and
Sham, the General Directorate of Borders" and displayed personal
details of each fighter, according to a review of some of the
documents by Reuters.
The forms included answers to 23 questions such as assumed name,
birthplace, education level, extent of Sharia learning and previous
jobs, as well as details about the individuals' journey to Islamic
State and whether they were potential suicide bombers or more
traditional fighters.
When asked for his view of the documents, Raffaello Pantucci,
director of international security studies at London's Royal United
Services Institute, said in an emailed response: "It seems a bit
dated."
"Very interesting though and a real gift for researchers into
understanding the group more," he added. "The key for me in many
ways is how this highlights the bureaucracy of the organization once
again - kinda like al Qaeda in fact."
(Additional reporting by Estelle Shirbon in London and Mark
Hosenball in Washington; Editing by Mark Trevelyan)
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