ISIS supporters have vowed to murder Twitter staff because they believe the site's policy of shutting down their extremist pages is a 'virtual war'.

A mocked-up image of the site's founder Jack Dorsey in cross-hairs was posted yesterday alongside a diatribe written in Arabic, which claimed Twitter employees' necks are 'a target for the soldiers of the Caliphate'.

Addressing Mr Dorsey personally, it claimed Twitter was taking sides in a 'media war' which allowed 'slaughter', adding: 'Your virtual war on us will cause a real war on you.

Diatribe: An image of Twitter founder Jack Dorsey in cross-hairs was posted alongside a rant in Arabic

It is nine years since Mr Dorsey launched the site, which is trying to avoid being a vehicle for jihadi videos

'How will you protect your employees and supporters, helpless Jack, when their necks officially become a target for the soldiers of the Caliphate?'

It also claimed killing employees 'outside a neighbourhood pub' would be no more preventable than the massacres of Charlie Hebdo killer Amedy Coulibaly and Copenhagen shooter Omar el-Hussein.

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It then said men and women, young and old, would all be targeted and closed by saying nothing would prevent the 'delivery of the holy mission to the world'. 

The rant was written anonymously and posted on the text sharing service roblox suicide gun script pastebin yesterday before being shared by ISIS supporters, including on Twitter.

A Twitter spokesman told BuzzFeed law enforcement officials had been made aware of the rant and will assess whether it poses a genuine threat.

Killers: The message compared its threat to the murders carried out in Paris by Amedy Coulibaly (left) and in Copenhagen by Omar el-Hussein (right). So-called 'lone wolf' attackers are encouraged by online messages

Islamic State militants have swept through huge tracts of Syria and Iraq, murdering thousands of people and forcing others to conform to an extreme interpretation of Sunni Islam.

Also known as ISIS and ISIL, they use social media a major propaganda tool in their bid to radicalise young Muslims and persuade them to fight in Iraq and Syria.

Last year Home Secretary Theresa May said 500 Brits had gone to fight in the two countries, with cases emerging since then of schoolgirls fleeing to become jihadi brides. 

The terror group has posted gruesome videos and images of murder, including beheadings, on mainstream sites such as Twitter and YouTube alongside the hidden parts of the web.

Both sites have a policy of taking down extremist content and blocking users who upload it, but usually by the time an account is shut down the content has spread halfway around the world.

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ISIS Threatens Twitter Founder And Employees Over Blocked Accounts - BuzzFeed News