ISIS social media comment turns into USAF air strike

[frigidmagi]

the Aviationist

It looks like the imprudent use of social media cost ISIS an air strike and three JDAMs dropped by U.S. attack planes on one of their buildings.

According to Air Force Gen. Hawk Carlisle, head of Air Combat Command, airmen belonging to the 361st Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance Group, at Hurlburt Field, Florida, were able to geo-locate an ISIS headquarters building thanks to a comment posted on social media by a militant.

As Carlisle explained to Defense Tech:

“The guys that were working down out of Hurlburt, they’re combing through social media and they see some moron standing at this command. And in some social media, open forum, bragging about the command and control capabilities for Daesh, ISIL. And these guys go: ‘We got an in.’ So they do some work, long story short, about 22 hours later through that very building, three [Joint Direct Attack Munitions] take that entire building out.”

Although the U.S. Air Force did not release any further information about the location of the headquarters or the aircraft that carried out the attack, the story is quite interesting as it proves that not only are social media used by ISIS for propaganda and recruiting purposes, they are also used by U.S. intel team to identify ground targets, supplementing ISR (Intelligence Surveillance Reconnaissance) activities conducted with the “usual” platforms, like satellites, spyplanes and UAVs (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles).

U.S. and NATO soldiers are always made aware of the risk of using social media and, generally speaking, digital technologies which embed information that can be exploited by the adversaries in various ways. Still OPSEC (Operations Security) breaches occur.

In 2007 four Apache helicopters were lost in Iraq because of smartphone geotagging: insurgents were able to determine the exact location of the AH-64s and successfully attack them because some soldiers had taken pictures on the flightline and uploaded them (including geotagging data) to the Internet.

Now even IS militants have experienced how dangerous an incautious use of social media can be.

Whooo!

[Josh]

Can your selfie get you killed???

It's more likely than you think.

[Lys]

So let me see if i get this straight: A USAF General is bragging in public about how stupid the Jihadis are for bragging in public. Seriously? Shouldn't he take his own words to heart and not remind the god-dammned enemy to be careful with their selfies? They say loose lips sink ships, but i guess the Air Force wouldn't know anything about that.

[frigidmagi]

This has been happening for awhile and ISIS already knew that we were using their social media stuff against them. At this point the trade off is a minor one.

[Josh]

Everything is about the tradeoff. In this case, trading a smidge of potential usefulness for a small PR coup that gets a general with an awesome name in the newspaper.

Really, "Hawk Carlisle"?

[rhoenix]

Hey, it's almost as good as "Staff Sgt. Max Fightmaster."

[Lys]

There's a difference between knowing something and remembering it. If one of the Daesh's headquarters gets hit there's not going to be an obvious causal connection between social media and the air strike unless the United States goes out of its way to make it. Yes they know we're using their own social media against them, but people slip up and pointing out those slips makes them less likely. You don't want to be giving pointers to the enemy even in matters where they're already aware there's a problem and are trying to fix it, as said pointers can help enforce compliance. Now Daesh leaders can cite American military leaders saying that being careless with social media will get Jihadis killed as an object lesson to their followers that being careless with social media will get them killed.

[General Havoc]

There is however an ancillary purpose on the other side of this. ISIS uses social media extensively in order to coordinate and recruit. Convincing them that Social Media is a death trap that will get them all killed will cut off a huge chunk of their ability to mobilize their forces and replenish them.

[Lys]

Okay that is a reason to brag that i can get behind.