The Afghan War Logs Part 1: Don't phone home! The Taliban will phone your mum!

In part 1 of some of my analysis of the leaked Afghan War logs I'll look at the concerns raised by one file posted from the ISAF HQ in Kabul about the use of the local GSM phone network and the capabilities of the Taliban to exploit it.

The file, which you can see here on the Guardian website. This file is of Type "Threat Report" and outlines how ISAF and other foreigners operating in the country could find the details of there phone calls been compromised by the Taliban, Taliban sympathizes or even foreign powers like Iran, Pakistan, China and India who's, according to the file embassies have a SIGINT or signals intelligence capacity, this means they have listening gear in there embassy that is capable of listening into foreign phone calls.



The files' background quotes this article from The Mirror, in which it claims Taliban sympathisers have been phoning up friends and family of British servicemen and woman and taunting them including death threats. The same thing happened in Iraq and like in Iraq this has lead to British soldiers having to hand in there mobile phones will there on tour in Afghanistan.

An US solider in a Afghan mobile phone shop

The concern is two fold. One-side there is a concern is that the foreign powers such as Russia, whom which had a SIGINT unit in Afghanistan assisting the Roshan GSM network in expanding its service to all provinces. It is reported that the Russian SIGINT have been listening into ISAF and communication via the Roshan network.

The second is not that like the Russian's, the Taliban doesn't have a particularly advanced SIGINT capability however they do have sympathisers inside the Roshan network whom have access to the information and pass it on to the Taliban. The Taliban have previously allowed Roshan engineerers into Zharey District of Kandahar through to Musa Qala and Sangin districts of Helmend. This is in area that the British have been fighting furiously to control.

This file shows a side of the Taliban we don't see in the media, they are able to take on a SIGINT role even though they aren't a large army and are normally considered to just be a group of religious nutters who lack the sophistication of been able to implement a signals intelligence, but this has clearly changed and coalition forces will have to react to this.

However, this tactic of phoning Bristish servicemen may back fire, as the comedian Rhod Gilbert, who encountered this very issue on a trip to Afghanistan explains: