Information OperationsNewsletter

Compiled by: Mr. Jeff Harley

US Army Strategic CommandG3 Plans, Operations, and Exercises

Information Operations Branch

Table of Contents

The articles and information appearing herein are intended for educational and non-commercial purposes to promote discussion of research in the public interest. The views, opinions, and/or findings and recommendations contained in this summary are those of the original authors and should not be construed as an official position, policy, or decision of the United States Government, U.S. Department of the Army, or U.S. Army Strategic Command.

Table of ContentsVol. 6, no. 17 (19 July – 10 August 2006)

1. I’m Covered in Leaflets!

2. Israeli Flyers Rain Down On Bemused Lebanese

3. Lincoln Group Out Of Military PR Contract

4. Congressman: We Need ‘Cyberspace’ Security

5. Israel Steps Up “Psy-Ops” In Lebanon

6. Hacked TV Shows and Makeshift Studios

7. News on a Platter

8. Letting the Images Speak for Themselves

9. Information Operations In Operations Enduring Freedom And Iraqi Freedom – What Went Wrong? (abstract)

10. Israel War Effort Extends Even To Hezbollah TV

11. The Man Who Put Al-Qaeda on the Web

12. In the Trenches

13. How Hizballah Hijacks the Internet

Page ii

I’m Covered in Leaflets!The secrets of airborne propaganda distribution.By Daniel Engber, Slate.com, July 18, 2006Israeli warplanes have dropped thousands of pink and yellow propaganda leaflets into Lebanon over the past week. Anyone who offers aid to Hezbollah, one of the flyers says, “is putting his life in danger.” How do you drop leaflets from an airplane?With a leaflet bomb. Capt. James Monroe invented the American propaganda bomb during World War II. Thousands of pieces of paper were stuffed into a laminated paper cylinder with a detonator and a delay, and then loaded into a B-17. The “Monroe bomb” exploded on the way down, sprinkling leaflets over enemy territory from a low altitude. The Air Force quickly developed more advanced versions of the same idea. For many years, their standard leaflet bomb was the M129, a fiberglass case that holds up to 80,000 flyers.The leaflet bomb reduces the effects of wind, which can easily blow leaflets away from their intended target. This problem was more acute during World War I, when many pilots made their leaflet drops by hand. The barnstorming pilot aces of the early 20th century also used hand-drops to distribute advertisements for their air shows. Charles Lindbergh had his mother toss notices from the cockpit of his plane.All those loose papers flying around the cockpit could get dangerous, though. By the 1940s, pilots had devised a safer system. First, they filled cardboard boxes with flyers, then attached the lids of the boxes to the plane with a cable. The boxes would fall from the airplane in one piece until the cable went taut. The lid would then pop off, releasing the leaflets at a safe distance from the plane.The cardboard-box method continues to be both cheap and effective. In the past few years the United States has used tethered boxes to distribute millions of propaganda flyers from low-flying planes over Iraq and Afghanistan. (In the run-up to the war with Saddam, the U.S. also bombarded Iraqis with e-mails and cell phone calls.) In general, propaganda-droppers use leaflet bombs when they need to fly at a safe, high altitude. If they can fly low, they use the cardboard-box technique.Military research on leaflet dispersion has focused on how to improve the M129 bomb, which tends to burn up some flyers when it bursts. Psychological warfare units have also experimented with remote-controlled parachutes and pneumatic systems that use pressurized gas to propel leaflets out of a plane.According to the PsyWar Society—which publishes a quarterly magazine called The Falling Leaf—aerial leaflet propaganda goes back at least as far as 1806, when a British admiral used kites to drop messages on the French. The French used balloons to drop leaflets on the Prussians in 1870, and the practice continued at least until the Second World War. Twentieth-century armies also fired leaflets at each other in howitzer shells, grenades, and rockets.Table of Contents

Israeli Flyers Rain Down On Bemused LebaneseBy Lin Noueihed, Reuters, 18 July 2006BEIRUT (Reuters) - Israeli flyers are raining down on Lebanese—some are cartoons mocking Hizbollah, others are warnings to stay away from the stronghold of the guerrilla group.In a crude drawing, leaflets dropped by Israeli planes over Beirut depict Hizbollah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah as a cobra dancing to the tune of the flute-playing leaders of Iran, Syria and Palestinian group Hamas.The cartoon shows two bombs near Nasrallah’s head, while the foreign leaders sit cross-legged on a map of Lebanon.Typed in Arabic and signed the “State of Israel”, the flyers are part of attempts by Israel to turn the Lebanese against the guerrilla group it is fighting.

Page 1

Other flyers warn residents that if they go near Hizbollah installations, under daily bombardment, it would be at their own risk. They warn against helping Hizbollah fighters engaged in “terrorism” against Israel.Lebanon is already split between opponents of Hizbollah who blame the group for sparking an Israeli campaign by capturing two Israeli soldiers on Wednesday, and supporters of the group, who consider the Jewish state their greatest foe. But such caricatures appear to have little effect on people’s opinion.“The cartoon flyer is cute. Usually these are threats to destroy Beirut and since we are seeing people blown up on TV all the time, this seems like comic relief,” said Nazha Merebi, a graphic designer.“I didn’t like the warnings to people to leave the south though, because where does Israel expect people to go when it has cut off the roads?”Residents scared by strikes and Israeli warnings have fled but roads are unsafe. Over 200 civilians have been killed in Lebanon since the crisis began a week ago, including 20 who died when an Israeli missile struck their van as they fled a border village in line with Israeli warnings by loudspeaker.LIKE CONFETTILebanese are no strangers to grim warnings falling from the sky. Even before the 1975-1990 civil war, Israel dropped flyers warning people not to assist Palestinian guerrillas then attacking the Jewish state from southern Lebanon.“It was 1969. I was 11 years old and going to school when we saw the flyers coming down and ran toward them,” said Younes Audi, who grew up in southern Lebanon. “I remember they were sky blue and read: he who sows the wind reaps the storm.”Those who stayed in Beirut during the 1982 Israeli invasion recall similar flyers: “Expel the saboteurs from your country.”Thousands of pink and yellow flyers dropped from the air over the past week litter the streets of Lebanese cities like confetti, some sticking in trees or falling in the sea.With the streets of the capital deserted, shops and offices closed and many fleeing to Syria, there are few passers-by to see the flyers anyway, but news of their content spreads fast.“For your safety and because of our desire to avoid harm to those who are not implicated, you must not be present in the areas where Hizbollah is present or operates,” one flyer read.It urged the Lebanese people and army not to offer aid to Hizbollah. “Anyone who does is putting his life in danger”.“We all know from the experience of the past few days the massive strength of Israel and its readiness to use this power against the terrorist elements,” read another flyer.“The saying goes: those who sleep in graveyards have nightmares.”Table of Contents

Lincoln Group Out Of Military PR ContractBy Griff Witte, Washington Post, 19 July 2006The U.S. military has removed two firms from a psychological operations contract aimed at influencing international public opinion, including one District-based company that ran into controversy last year for planting pro-U.S. articles in Iraqi newspapers.The firms, plus a third company that will retain the contract, spent the past year developing prototypes for radio and television spots intended for use in Iraq and in other nations where the United States is combating terrorism. Unlike the reports that the District-based Lincoln Group distributed to the Iraqi press—which looked to be written by independent Iraqi journalists—the commander in charge of the new spots said yesterday that he wants their origins made clear.

Page 2

“Certainly we would intend to accept attribution for the spots,” said Col. Jack Summe, commander of the Tampa-based Joint Psychological Operations Support Element. “We will not place things under someone else’s name, trying to fool people into thinking it’s a true news item.”But Summe said that the ultimate decision on how the spots will be attributed has still not been made pending the outcome of a policy review and that the military does not have a timetable for when they will air.The contract for the TV and radio spots is separate from the deal under which the Lincoln Group distributed articles from the U.S. military to Iraqi newspapers. The newspaper contract was unaffected by the change to the TV and radio contract.The TV and radio contract, originally worth up to $300 million over five years, had been held by three firms since last year: the Lincoln Group; San Diego-based Science Applications International Corp.; and Arlington-based SYColeman, a subsidiary of New York-based L-3 Communications Corp.But officials with the military’s Special Operations Command decided this spring that they would be better off with just one contractor. They exercised their option to continue SYColeman’s contract but not the other two. Military officials say the decision had nothing to do with last year’s controversy over the Lincoln Group.“We learned that working with three companies increases expenditures in both time and money and does not provide best value to the government,” said Lt. Col. David Farlow, spokesman for the military’s psychological operations unit.Lincoln Group spokesman Bill Dixon said in a statement yesterday that the firm “continues to win contracts in the American effort to engage audiences in transitional areas of the world because of its unique capabilities and proven record of accomplishing the objectives of its clients.” He added, “Because confidentiality is vital to this work, the firm will not comment on the details of any contracts.”Dixon said the company believes the military’s Special Operations Command needs more money “and clearer policy guidance in order to fight the ‘War of Ideas,’ a key component of the global War on Terrorism.”SAIC spokeswoman Connie Custer declined to comment.SYColeman, which took over sole possession of the contract last month, referred calls yesterday to L-3. A spokeswoman there did not respond to a request for comment.Summe said that even though SYColeman’s contract is worth up to $20 million this year, he expects actual spending to be far less. Last year, he said, the military paid the three firms a total of just over $3 million under the contract.The Lincoln Group was founded three years ago by a young former Marine and a recent Oxford University graduate to capitalize on business opportunities in post-invasion Iraq. Company officials have defended their work for the government, saying that paying to have stories published is common in many Middle Eastern countries and that it was necessary to counter claims by insurgents.Table of Contents

Congressman: We Need ‘Cyberspace’ SecurityBy Terence J. Kivlan, Staten Island Advance, July 21, 2006WASHINGTON—Congressional pressure is mounting on Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff to appoint a coordinator for his agency’s program to shield national computer networks from terrorist attacks. The Bush administration announced a “National Strategy to Secure Cyberspace” almost three years ago, but no one has been named to direct the blueprint for reducing network vulnerability and developing a recovery and response plan in the event of an attack. “Unfortunately, [the department] has not treated this position with the priority and weight it deserves,” Rep. Vito Fossella wrote in a letter yesterday to Rep. Joe Barton (R-La.), chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, of which Fossella is a member.

Page 3

Fossella (R-Staten Island/Brooklyn) wants his committee to hold hearings into Homeland Security’s failure to fill the position. Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) has introduced legislation that would force Homeland Security to make the appointment. Department officials say they have been screening telecommunications industry experts for the job and are in the final stages of making the selection. But Fossella’s letter contended that “it may be only a matter of time before we are the victims of a major cyber attack which could have a devastating effect on the American economy.” Although the 2003 power blackout was unrelated to terrorism, it “showed the dramatic effect such an event could have,” Fossella said. Critics have charged that the Bush administration doesn’t grasp the seriousness of the cyberspace threat. “It is a long-term issue and they are preoccupied with the immediate and the tactical,” John Lewis, the director of technology for the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said yesterday.Table of Contents

Israel Steps Up “Psy-Ops” In Lebanon By Peter Feuilherade, BBC News, 26 July 2006 From mass targeting of mobile phones with voice and text messages to old-fashioned radio broadcasts warning of imminent attacks, Israel is deploying a range of old and new technologies in Lebanon as part of the psychological operations (“psyops”) campaign supplementing its military attacks. According to US and UK media outlets, Israel has reactivated a radio station to broadcast messages urging residents of southern Lebanon to evacuate the region. Some reports have named the station as the Voice of the South. The South Lebanon Army, a Christian militia backed by Israel, operated a radio station called Voice of the South from Kfar Killa in southern Lebanon in the 1980s and 1990s. The station closed down in May 2000 when Israeli forces withdrew from southern Lebanon. Cash for tip-offs The Israeli newspaper Maariv on Sunday reported the appearance of a website called All 4 Lebanon which offered payment for tip-offs from Lebanese citizens “that could help Israel in the fight against Hezbollah”.

Whoever is able and willing to help Lebanon eradicate Hezbollah’s evil and get back its independence, freedom and prosperity is hereby invited to contact us

All 4 Lebanon website According to Maariv, the site, with content in Arabic, English and French, had been set up by Israeli intelligence. “We appeal to everyone who has the ability and the desire to uproot the sore called Hezbollah from your heart and from the heart of Lebanon,” the paper quoted the website as saying in Arabic. On its English-language page, the site says: “Whoever is able and willing to help Lebanon eradicate Hezbollah’s evil and get back its independence, freedom and prosperity is hereby invited to contact us.” It adds: “For your own safety, please contact us from places where no-one knows you.” The Arabic wording is identical to that on leaflets which Israeli aircraft have been dropping over Beirut and the south of Lebanon. The leaflets called on people to “remove the sore known as Hezbollah from the heart of Lebanon”. The rewards “could be a range of things, such as cash or a house”, according to an Israel Defence Forces spokeswoman quoted by Reuters news agency.

Page 4

It was not clear how such items would be delivered or exactly what information Israel wanted, Reuters noted. Mobile aggression On Friday, residents of southern Lebanon reported receiving recorded messages on their mobile phones from an unknown caller. The speaker identified himself as an Israeli and warned people in the area to leave their homes and head north. Dubai-based news channel al-Arabiya TV reported that the recorded messages also said they “held the Lebanese government responsible for the abduction of the two Israeli soldiers, and called on Lebanon to set them free”. Inquiries by Lebanon’s communications ministry revealed that the calls had come from exchanges in Italy and Canada, but had originated in Israel. According to US magazine Time, Israel has been targeting SMS text messages at local officials in southern Lebanon, urging them to move north of the Litani river before Israeli military operations intensified. The UK’s Guardian newspaper said mobile phone users in Lebanon were regularly receiving messages to their phones which purported to be news updates, attempting to discredit Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah or his party. Satellite warfare next? As Israel broadens its psyops activities, it also continues to attack media targets using conventional military means. Air raids on Saturday hit transmission stations used by Hezbollah’s al-Manar TV, Future TV and the Lebanese Broadcasting Corporation (LBC). A technician working for LBC was reported to have been killed. The next day, a convoy of journalists from Lebanese and pan-Arab TV channels was attacked by Israeli planes while on a tour of southern Lebanon; no injuries were reported. According to an unconfirmed report by Egypt’s Middle East News Agency, Israel managed on Sunday “to intercept the satellite transmissions of Hezbollah’s al-Manar TV channel for the third successive day, replacing it with Israeli transmissions that reportedly showed Hezbollah command sites and rocket launching pads which Israel claimed it has raided”. Replacing a TV station’s picture with output you want the audience to see is more difficult to achieve than jamming. Al-Manar TV has three satellite signals, one on ArabSat 2B at 30.5 degrees east, one on Badr 3 at 26 degrees east and one on NileSat 102 at 7 degrees west. On Badr 3 and NileSat, al-Manar is broadcast alongside other TV stations in a multiplexed or combined digital signal. While it would be technically feasible to replace one station’s output, all the other stations in the multiplex would be taken off the air too. The technical parameters of the original station would need to be exactly duplicated by the interloper.Table of Contents

Hacked TV Shows and Makeshift StudiosBy Hans Hoyng and Christoph Schult, Spiegel, 8 August 2006In addition to deadly missiles, Israel and Hezbollah have traded shots in a sophisticated propaganda war. The clear technology advantage goes to Israel—but why isn’t Hezbollah losing? Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert fixed last Wednesday as a major media blitz day. For two hours he gave interviews to Israeli journalists. For three hours he talked to foreign media, inviting reporters into his office two at a time. The Associated Press reporter had to share an interview with the competition from Reuters; the London Times with the Financial Times.

Page 5

The prime minister wanted to announce a wide-ranging success in the war against Hezbollah: The infrastructure of the Islamic extremists, he said, was “totally destroyed,” 770 of their commando posts had been eliminated.But seldom had an alleged military breakthrough been so quickly—and so brutally—disproven. While Olmert was praising the effectiveness of Israeli weaponry, Hezbollah started a rocket assault on Israel unprecedented in the preceeding 21 days of war: A total of 230 missiles fell on Israeli territory that day; one civilian died, and dozens were injured. One rocket fell on Beit Shean, a good 70 kilometers from the Lebanese border. The shot was celebrated by Al-Manar, the propaganda TV station run by Hezbollah, as a new distance record.For both sides, the war is no longer just a matter of decisions made on the battlefield. It’s also a matter of winning hearts and minds around the world. Propaganda and psychological warfare are especially important in this “asymmetrical war”—which looks as unbalanced in communications technology as it is in military force.And Israel has learned a depressing lesson: Hezbollah and its leader, Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, only have to survive in order to be regarded as heroes, at least in the Arab world. And surviving is something the Islamists have so far proven to be experts at.Nasrallah appeared on television on the third day of the war—after a hard day of Israeli attacks—and announced: “Here are the surprises I have promised. The Israelis’ warships will burn and sink before their eyes.” A few minutes later the Israeli corvette “Spear” was hit off the coast of Lebanon by a radar-guided missile and crippled by flames. Until then the Israelis hadn’t even known that Hezbollah possessed such sophisticated weapons.Al-Manar TV has been at the center of Israeli attention since the first minute of the war. The station’s headquarters were first attacked on July 13, just one day after Hezbollah triggered the current hostilities by kidnapping two Israeli soldiers on July 12. Despite the attack, though, it took only two minutes for the militant group’s TV technicians to start broadcasting a replacement signal.But the Israelis managed to hack into Hezbollah’s broadcast. Over an image of Nasrallah they laid a caption: “Your day is coming, coming, coming.”—along with the sound of gunshots.Asymmetrical WarfareIsrael’s propaganda department, as a whole, is far more professional than Hezbollah’s. Foreign correspondents are served in the morning with ideas for stories by the Israeli army, and interviews with victims of Hezbollah rockets can be easily organized, interpreters and lunch included. Hezbollah, at best, has organized a few sullen tours for journalists through bombed-out areas.The Israelis send warnings about imminent air strikes not only with flyer drops and radio alerts but also by text message. Some people in Lebanon have even been woken up by phone calls at 5:30 a.m.—only to hear a recorded voice explain the reasons for the Israeli invasion.But all this modern technology seems to have had little more than the predictable effects. While American and European media showed a lot of understanding for Israel’s war effort, at least at first, Arabic media reported exclusively about the suffering of air-strike victims in Lebanon. There was no mention of victims in Israel. Broadcasters like Al-Manar, Al-Jazeera, and Al-Arabiya showed constant images of the mangled dead. “We’ve shown a lot more than the German media, and a lot less than our audience wants from us,” says Aktham Suliman, the Al-Jazeera correspondent in Germany.The image war has burned brightest over pictures of Lebanese victims at Qana, the southern Lebanese village attacked by Israel a week ago Sunday. The Lebanese claimed 56 dead, including a horrifying number of children. Qana was symbolic; Israeli grenades had killed over a hundred Lebanese refugees there 10 years before. Now it was once again a theater for bloodletting. But the reaction in the West has been different this time. Bloggers accused Hezbollah members of repeatedly pulling the same children’s bodies out of the wrecked building for the benefit of photographers—accusations not even Israel embraced.Experts from Human Rights Watch investigated. And they came up with a corrected tally: Not 56 victims, but 28, including 15 children, had been killed in the attack. Another 13 people were missing. Still, the group found no evidence of a staged victim-recovery operation.

Page 6

Israel now runs the risk of losing the image war. Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni admitted as much after the assault on Qana, which she described as “a turning point that created a problematic dynamic against Israel.”Table of Contents

News on a PlatterBy Matthias Gebauer, Der Spiegel, 28 July 2006Propaganda is part of every war, just like bombs and soldiers. Still, it’s remarkable how professionally Israel deals with foreign journalists, catering conscientiously to all their needs. Lunch included. The phone rings at 9 a.m.—right on time. “Hello, this is the Government Press Office,” pipes a woman’s voice. “What are you planning to do today? Do you need an idea?” And then the suggestions just keep coming—interview partners; a tour to the houses in Haifa that were struck by Katyusha rockets, complete with victim interviews. An expert will come along too, one who explains the nature of the rockets—“in clean sound bites, if you want.”There’s more on the plate. “The highlight is still to come,” says the lady from Israel’s press office, the GPO. “We can offer an interview in Naharya with the parents of the kidnapped soldiers,” she says. She explains that the parents of Ehud Goldwasser, who has been held by Hezbollah since July 12, are waiting in a hotel. An interpreter? No need. “They speak good English, don’t worry.”Many journalists come along, most of them by GPO bus. About 15 camera teams have set up their equipment. Twenty radio and print journalists are enjoying their coffee and the specially prepared sandwiches. Then the parents arrive. The father self-consciously steps up to the microphone. The desk in front of him bristles with microphones—as if a politician were giving a press conference. He’s sweating slightly; the veins on his forehead are bulging.Shlomo Goldwasser doesn’t have much to say—not much more than the banal phrases security officials often teach parents so they stay on message. “They, my son’s kidnappers, are responsible for Ehud’s safety,” Goldwasser says. “They are also responsible for returning him to us soon—and unscathed.” He says he can’t think of anything else to tell us. He’s a father, he says, not a politician.“Please don’t smile”Goldwasser has barely finished speaking when a journalistic scrum erupts and cameramen start to shout. “Mr. Goldwasser, over here,” one of them calls. “Please don’t smile.” Others want to hear childhood stories—“It tugs on the viewers’ heartstrings.” Elsewhere, the man’s wife has to leaf repeatedly through the family photo album. She responds to the orders given her like a robot and would presumably even start crying if she were told to do so. Fortunately no one makes such a request.The disgraceful spectacle goes on for 90 minutes. The parents say they’ve got nothing to do with politics, nor with the war. They’ve been told appearances in public could save their son. And it’s all organized and choreographed by the Israeli government’s press office—organized for foreign journalists, so that one of the reasons for the current war, the suffering of parents and civilians, receives the public attention it is due. But the parents, in this story, somehow come off only as extras.Propaganda is a part of war—especially when a state wants the world to see its decision to take up arms as justified and just. It’s no different than the run up to the first Gulf War or the more recent war in Afghanistan—or, more perfidiously, to the second US war against Iraq. Vast armies of public relations workers develop an emotionally charged image meant to provide media and public support for the conflict’s architects. It’s standard procedure—public relations for war.Not all the information circulated in such a controlled atmosphere, of course, is to be believed. But it’s hard to criticize Israel for wanting to see victims of Hezbollah rockets -- 17 killed since the beginning of the war against the militant group—in the media. Indeed it is precisely these victims that fuel the Israeli operations currently raging in southern Lebanon.

Page 7

PR warriors take to the mountainsStill, Israel’s support and supervision of foreign journalists seems downright excessive. As soon as you’ve received your press credentials from the GPO, you’re bombarded with e-mails and phone calls. When covering other crisis regions, German reporters often have to make an effort to be extra nice and polite and have to search out interviewees and contacts themselves. Not here. In Israel, reporters are on an all-inclusive package trip—and are well looked after.Well-thought-out story ideas including transportation, lunch and selected military experts—all these things are offered without ever having to be asked for. Many journalists happily accept the offer. For days, images of Israeli artillery units flickered on TV screens the world over—one reason of course being that the PR warriors always took the camera teams to the frontlines around sunset. The soft, warm twilight is favored by camera men and photographers.An e-mail that arrived on Wednesday is a good example. It offers no less than 11 news stories. The Israeli refugees, perhaps. Or the problems with Arab Israelis? A feature about how an entire village has been dispersed across Israel? A report on people who had to leave their houses? Former hostages? Or a village that has been shot at for decades? It’s all available.There’s no need to go anywhere. “The contacts can be reached by phone,” the woman from the press office says. “It’s better to do it that way, especially for the radio.” The organizers know exactly what the reporters want. Radio and TV journalists often have to go on air so often that they barely get a chance to leave the hotel. So when a Katyusha rocket strikes, an e-mail containing a list of eyewitnesses, complete with their mobile phone numbers, is more than welcome.Language barriers are willingly breached as well. Every list includes eyewitnesses with different language profiles. There’s plenty to choose from in an immigrant country like Israel: English, French, Spanish, Russian and of course several German speakers in every city. Laborious simultaneous translations are rendered superfluous by the service.The Israeli public relations experts, though, have their work cut out for them. With public opinion turning against the Israelis following the bombing of the UN outpost in southern Lebanon, the country’s use of excessive force is once again a major issue. And the war doesn’t seem as though it will come to an end any time soon.Table of Contents

Letting the Images Speak for ThemselvesBy Ulrike Putz, Der Spiegel, 28 July 2006Hezbollah isn’t particularly obliging in its dealings with foreign journalists. Instead of doing pro-active public relations work, the Lebanese militia is concentrating on a simple strategy: Let the images speak for themselves.The scene is grotesque. More than two dozen journalists stand in the midst of devastated buildings, crowded around a Hezbollah press spokesperson. Cameramen shoot some final footage of bombed-out buildings and TV reporters wear shrapnel-protection vests—to convey a sense of danger to viewers. A Scandinavian journalist wears stylish flip flops as she walks through the destroyed city—where glass shards and debris sometimes lie piled up several feet high in the streets.We’ve reached the end of a tour, organized by Hezbollah, through the almost entirely devastated neighborhood of Haret Hreik in southern Beirut. We’re back by the collapsed highway bridge that cuts the neighborhood into two halves. Hussein Nabulsi, one of Hezbollah’s press spokesmen, announces that we will meet here again tomorrow at the same time.“I would kindly ask the CNN team to be on time tomorrow,” he says. “You’ve been late the last three times already.”Even if a certain sense of routine has developed after two weeks of de facto war—Hezbollah is hardly pro-active in its relations with the foreign press, represented in Beirut by dozens of foreign reporters. There’s no real method to be discerned behind the militia’s public relations work. While some camera teams that tried to film in Dahieyeh on their own were immediately pressured to leave the neighborhood—a Hezbollah stronghold in southern Beirut—and escorted north by men on motor scooters, other journalists were able to move as freely as they like. The journalist’s ID issued

Page 8

by the Lebanese Interior Ministry is scrupulously checked at some street crossings—at others, however, reporters are waved through before documents can even be produced.And even if reporters have been led repeatedly through Dahieyeh during the past days, the tours seem somewhat improvised. Just as in southern Lebanon, there are no pictures of Hezbollah militants or positions—just endless images showing the horrors suffered by the civilian population. The pictures that scream at pedestrians from the front pages of the Arab newspapers in the mornings are so brutal and upsetting they don’t require any extra spin. Let the images speak for themselves, let the refugees tell their stories—that seems to be Hezbollah’s strategy.Of course it’s strange that one of the two sides in this conflict is virtually invisible, while the other lets its public relations machine—which has been developed and perfected for years—feed journalists pre-packaged nuggets of information that can go directly into print. Indeed, preventing journalists from wandering freely through Dahieyeh is likely part of the strategy. After all, the neighborhood is a militant stronghold and the possibility of informants is very much on Hezbollah’s mind.The ground beneath the southern suburbs of Beirut is almost certainly riddled with tunnel systems and bunkers where Hezbollah seeks shelter. Rumors that spies are using lasers or homing devices to mark these potential targets for the Israeli air force abound. Hezbollah is said to have arrested 140 alleged spies so far.Before Hussein Nabulsi dismisses the group of journalists for today, the TV reporters get a propaganda classic for their cameras after all. A truck painted in loud colors drives by with combative slogans and anti-Israeli songs thundering from its PA system. No one is there to hear these slogans and songs apart from the reporters. No one lives in these streets anymore.Table of Contents

Information Operations In Operations Enduring Freedom And Iraqi Freedom – What Went Wrong? (abstract)

By Major Joseph L. Cox, US Army, School of Advanced Military Studies monograph, 124 pages, March 2006This monograph examines the integration of Information Operations (IO) during Operations Enduring Freedom (OEF) and Iraqi Freedom (OIF). As a rule, most commanders considered IO ineffective because IO was unable to respond to the complex environments of Afghanistan and Iraq. This monograph examines how the Army prepared commanders to integrate IO into operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. Both theaters offer good examples of how commanders integrated IO effectively and how commanders failed to integrate IO effectively.There are essentially three issues commanders must confront to integrate IO: doctrine, intelligence support to IO and resourcing the IO efforts. First, Army doctrine does not provide commanders adequate guidance for integrating IO into their operations. Doctrine presents IO in a disjointed manner and as a function that is essentially separate from the commander’s other requirements and missions, not as something that must be integrated into all his requirements and missions. Second, IO requires proper intelligence support to be effective, but intelligence doctrine and resourcing do not allow intelligence support to IO to be effective. Intelligence doctrine provides little practical guidance on support to IO and intelligence processors and analysts are currently unprepared to provide the in depth analysis of the information environment IO requires. Third, the Army has not resourced itself to conduct IO in an effective manner. There are currently only sixty percent of the required IO officers in the Army. None of the Army Battle Command Systems (ABCS) can adequately portray the information environment, nor can they process the reporting that would allow them to analyze and portray the information environment. Professional Military Education and unit training programs do not stress IO as an integrated function and do not present commanders with realistic situations in which they must achieve success in the information environment. As a result of these three issues with the Army’s concept of IO, commanders just do not understand how to integrate IO.After examining why and how commanders were unable to integrate IO effectively, this monograph will provide a series of recommendations that if implemented will help prepare commanders for the task of integrating IO. Those recommendations include doctrinal changes and modifications,

Page 9

organizational changes, training requirements, material resourcing requirements, leadership and education requirements, and personnel resourcing requirements. Some of these recommendations are already in the process of being implemented, others could be implemented relatively quickly, while the remaining recommendations will need more detailed study to fully implement so as to make long-term changes in the Army and how the Army prepares commanders to integrate IO.The appendices provide the reader with more detailed information on IO that could not realistically be included in the length requirements of this monograph. While reading them is not essential to understanding the issues presented in the monograph, the appendices do help in providing more depth or understanding of the subjects presented in the main body of the monograph. These appendices discuss the relationship of Public Affairs to IO, provides an overview of IO organizational and equipment capabilities of the units identified in the main body of the monograph and provides a more detailed breakdown of the various units which served in OEF and OIF.[Editor Note: Above is the abstract from a SAMS monograph published earlier this year. Size of the file is 4Mb – if interested in reading the entire monograph, please contact me and I will forward separately. Jeff]Table of Contents

Israel War Effort Extends Even To Hezbollah TVBy Eli Lake, the New York Sun, August 2, 2006HAIFA, Israel — Viewers of Hezbollah TV are getting some unexpected interruptions — courtesy of their enemy.In the middle of newscasts and programming from Hezbollah’s Al-Manar station, Israeli technicians are hacking the signal and replacing it with a 90-second spot that begins with a gun site superimposed on a crude drawing of Hezbollah’s leader, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, looking at the ground.The image is punctuated by the sound of three gunshots and framed on the top with the words, “Your day is coming, coming, coming.” On the bottom of the image of Sheik Nasrallah are the words: “The state of Israel.” For the next 90 seconds, the message is clear: Give up. Resistance is futile.The special broadcast to Al-Manar’s audience from Israel is the latest salvo in the Jewish state’s propaganda war against the Iranian-backed terror militia after Israel’s military managed to hack into the satellite feed of the station over the weekend.The spot goes on to show Sheik Nasrallah giving a speech in which a voice says: “There is no doubt that this is the strongest air force in the area. And we can’t stand up against it.” It features the view from Israeli bombers striking targets in Lebanon and ends with an announcer saying, “Nasrallah knows the truth, but he continues, as is his way, to drag Lebanon into destruction, to throw sand in your eyes.”Israeli officials yesterday would not speak on the record about the psychological warfare operation on Al-Manar, whose main headquarters was bombed on the first day of the air campaign on July 13. The station, which has aired docudramas reviving the Jewish blood libel, has managed to stay on the air through broadcasting from alternate studios, carrying a defiant speech from Sheik Nasrallah over the weekend. Israeli television first interrupted the Al-Manar signal over the weekend.Speaking on background, one former senior Israel Defense Force official familiar with the operation said,”The aim of this is to disassociate the innocent civilian from the terrorist, who is using them and abusing them, by operating in the midst of a heavily populated area.“When they are masquerading as civilians, they are putting every other person at risk. The aim of the psychological warfare is to get the Lebanese to see the terrorists are actually terrorists who are endangering you, to understand that Nasrallah is masquerading as the liberator of Lebanon.”Since the beginning of the war, Israel has engaged in a number of propaganda missions referred to as psy-ops, short for psychological warfare. These include dropping leaflets on Lebanese civilians, urging them to abandon Hezbollah. The leaflets feature a snake, which is a symbol in the Arab world for treachery.

Page 10

Israel also has hacked Lebanese phone lines with recorded messages urging listeners to turn in Hezbollah fighters and operatives. Israeli radio stations are broadcasting in Lebanon with similar messages.Psy-ops are increasingly a critical part of how advanced countries fight asymmetrical war. While Israeli commanders insist that the sorties of bombs that they have dropped on Lebanon are aimed at Hezbollah infrastructure, part of the war campaign is aimed at sanctioning the Lebanese people to the point where they understand the terrible price that the country will pay for allowing Hezbollah to work in its midst.This is one way that Israel’s information warfare in Lebanon is distinguished from America’s efforts in Iraq and the broader Middle East. While the Pentagon and State Department stressed their aim of winning hearts and minds, the Israelis for now are content with terrifying the friends of their enemy.“Part of this is to instill fear,” the former senior Israel Defense Force official said. “This is mostly aimed at the Hezbollah operative. This is instilling fear.” The official added, however, that the most effective part of the message was that it proved Israel could take over Hezbollah’s primary instrument of propaganda. “If you could destroy Al-Manar, which we all know is a platform for destroying psychological order, it is one thing. But better than destroying it is using it against them,” the official said.One Israeli military spokesman pointed out that Hezbollah also uses psychological operations against Israelis.“Hezbollah has a special unit dealing only with communication and psychological warfare,” Olivier Rafowicz said. “This unit is dealing with Al-Manar in the promotion of the image of Hezbollah. For many years, they have been strong, using television to try to demolish the morale of the soldiers and the population of Israel. They were filming their terror operations, for example. One team … specialized in filming the operations. When they were successful, the film was given to everyone in the world.”Mr. Rafowicz added that Sheik Nasrallah’s recent threats to strike Tel Aviv and a petrochemical facility in Haifa was a form of psychological warfare.Table of Contents

The Man Who Put Al-Qaeda on the WebBy Barry Levine, Newsfactor Magazine, July 29, 2006 Posting and boasting his way to prominence, Irhabi007 started appearing on radical Islamist bulletin boards and in chat rooms. For his user I.D., he melded “irhabi,” which means “terrorist” in Arabic, to the code number of the world’s most famous, albeit fictional, British secret agent. Like radar in the last century, the Internet is a radical new tool that is helping to redefine the dimensions of warfare. For al-Qaeda, the shadowy terrorist organization behind 9/11, the Net is helping it to be everywhere … and nowhere. But there are real people, in real space, maintaining what is, in effect, al-Qaeda’s I.T. department. Last October, the most important member of that group so far—the man who has been called “the Godfather of cyber-terrorism”—was arrested. He is a 22-year-old Muslim immigrant to Great Britain named Younis Tsouli. On that cold autumn morning, police raided the West London flat where Tsouli lived and worked, and arrested him. As they entered, Tsouli was reportedly putting the finishing touches on a Web page titled “You Bomb It.” On his hard drive, police said they found a video of how to make a car bomb, and another showing several locations in Washington, D.C. Tsouli, now residing in Belmarsh Prison in England, is expected to go on trial in January, along with two other young Muslim immigrants arrested at the same time. The three suspects were reportedly discovered at least in part as the result of intelligence obtained in previous busts in Sarajevo and Denmark. In the Sarajevo arrest, more than 40 pounds of plastic explosives and a suicide-bomb belt were reportedly found, as well as plans pointing to bombing attacks in Europe and the U.S.

Page 11

Although he may have been part of those cells, Tsouli was not your ordinary terrorist. By all indications, it appears that he was the most visible al-Qaeda Internet operative so far, better known by his screen name: Irhabi007. Radar brought pinpoint tracking to the age of centralized warfare. By contrast, the Internet, in this distributed age, is helping to decentralize warfare. And like many decentralized franchises, al-Qaeda has come to use the World Wide Web for marketing, distribution, research, fund raising, recruiting, and, on occasion, operations. Marketing Terrorism But, at first, the Internet was only a means for al-Qaeda to distribute its equivalent of brochures. “Initially, before 9/11, [al-Qaeda] appeared to be using the Net primarily as a marketing tool,” says Ned Moran, an intelligence analyst at the Terrorism Research Center outside Washington, D.C. He cites a Web site called Almeda.com as a key promoter of radical Islam. Shortly after 9/11, Almeda.com and others were attacked by unknown hackers and shut down. It was about the time that al-Qaeda was being pushed out of Afghanistan, and the Internet became a perfect communications mechanism for what was now a terrorist organization on the move.At that point, Moran says, “They were forced to innovate.” On the Internet, al-Qaeda undertook two big innovations. First, like any organization that wants to secure a loyal base, al-Qaeda wanted to increase its online “stickiness” and cultivate its market, and so it started to use community-building tools. Bulletin boards, chat rooms, and other mechanisms—sometimes under passwords and mostly in Arabic—became key attractions. And, second, the Internet operations began to repeat themselves. Many sites were launched, and content was cross-posted between several dozen of them. Al-Qaeda’s Internet operations began to mirror its replicating terrorist cells, multiplying as soon as some were destroyed. But all the while, the Net was a key unifier. The Internet operation, Moran says, was “the central pole in the tent holding up the organization.” Al-Qaeda became, in the words of a BBC2-TV series last year, “a global brand driven by the power of the World Wide Web.” But Aaron Weisburd, the head of an anti-terrorist group called Internet Hagganah, downplays the number of al-Qaeda sites. “The ‘proliferation of jihadist Web sites’ is not quite the problem it is made out to be,” he says. “There are really only a handful of Web sites of significance, and the rest are peripheral, though as Web sites fall, some in the periphery may gain more significance.” Weisburd contends that, behind the curtain, “There are only a relatively small number of people responsible for much of what we see online.” License to Kill It was in this murky scene—al-Qaeda emerging in various forms on the Net, but with no dominant personalities—that a character known by the screen name of Irhabi007 emerged. Posting and boasting his way to prominence, Irhabi007 started appearing on radical Islamist bulletin boards and in chat rooms. He had no apparent reluctance in melding “irhabi,” which means “terrorist” in Arabic, to the code number of the world’s most famous, albeit fictional, British secret agent. In addition to his proclamations, Irhabi007 frequently posted low-level, apparently stolen documents, such as a purportedly official Israeli map program, complete with serial number, and a U.S. Army Handbook on Intelligence for Combat Commanders. He was also posting training tips about the Internet for other jihadists. Irhabi007 “put a face and a name to al-Qaeda’s Internet presence” for the first time, Moran says.According to Internet Hagganah, Irhabi007 was not a native speaker of Arabic, and, when posting in that language, he used translation software. But English was often his language of choice. “We all know some Yankees recentely [sic] got back from Iraq,” went a typical posting, as quoted by Internet Hagganah, “and we all know these idiots tend to tape on camera anything so im [sic] sure

Page 12

in a couple of weeks we might see personal home pages displaying footages from Iraq giving us … a little insight into how things go.” Irhabi007 was also becoming known for ratcheting up al-Qaeda’s use of the Internet for propaganda, rapidly posting documents and media. For instance, he gained notoriety for quickly posting the gruesome video of American Nicholas Berg’s beheading, as well as many videos. The Berg decapitation was reportedly downloaded half a million times in 24 hours. As was his specialty, Irhabi007 made sure that it was cross-posted at other sites, in order to handle the traffic. He was, Moran says, “sort of al-Qaeda’s super administrator.” The 2004 Berg video in particular became a model. It showed a masked man purporting to be none other than Abu Musab al-Zarqawi as the executioner. Killed in June by an American air assault, al-Zarqawi was the apparent leader of the al-Qaeda contingent in Iraq. That video and others like it—of similarly gruesome executions, or attacks on Americans, or training exercises—influenced the creation and distribution of similar material from other terrorist cells, such as ones from Thailand. Most of these videos were in clear homage to al-Zarqawi. In fact, it was Irhabi007’s speed in posting information and media relating to attacks, especially those in Iraq, that led to his reputation as al-Zarqawi’s Internet point man. The Net-distributed videos and proclamations became an important part of al-Zarqawi’s outreach to the faithful. Osama Bin Laden was known for using Al Jazeera, the Arab world’s most prominent TV network, to get his message out. But beginning with a communiqué posted on a jihadist forum in 2004, al-Zarqawi began to cultivate the Internet to distribute pronouncements and media. Al-Zarqawi discovered, for instance, that when he allowed a video scene to be posted showing his face for the first time, within hours followers had posted translations of his words into several languages. If the Web was pumping up the global brand of al-Qaeda, that brand was hot in certain circles.And Irhabi007 was its PR guy. “He facilitated a lot of online activities,” Weisburd says, “often committing crimes along the way. He was always part of a bunch of guys all working on similar projects, not all of whom are in custody.” Far from being a tech mastermind, Weisburd says, Irhabi007 “was more a problem solver than a great hacker.” “He seemed to have had an energizing role, in that videos started to regularly appear,” says Mark Burgess, director of the World Security Institute’s office in Brussels. “He was good, but he wasn’t a rocket scientist. He got caught.” Binary Bread Crumbs According to Internet Hagganah, by mid-2004 Irhabi007 had established a pattern of behavior that included posting Web pages on free hosting sites, sometimes with downloadable materials. He was regularly posting on jihadist forums like al-Palsm and al-Erhap and, when those forums ended, on another called Muntada al-Ansar al-Islami. The al-Ansar forum in particular was connected to al-Zarqawi. Irhabi007 was beginning to attract his own following, with terrorist wannabes sometimes attaching “007” to the end of their screen names. By the fall of 2004, he was able to post videos of suicide bombings faster and more efficiently than most others, and received a clear mark of distinction: public praise from an aide to al-Zarqawi. According to the Terrorist Research Center, Irhabi007 was even credited as the “administrator” on al-Zarqawi’s al-Ansar site. Internet Hagganah said it kept after Irhabi, getting the free Web and FTP sites he was using to shut down. “The point of that effort was not to silence Irhabi007,” the group reported later on its site, but “to keep him busy. This increased the chance of him making a mistake that would allow us to locate him. The plan worked better than expected.” “There’s an old saying: In jungle warfare, the jungle is neutral,” says Burgess of the World Security Institute. “Like anything else, the Net has its vulnerabilities. [Terrorists] can spread their ideology, but potentially they can be tracked down.”

Page 13

In mid-2004, Irhabi007’s brazenness began to work against him. In July, he became an FBI target for the first time when he tried to use an FTP server that belonged to the State of Arkansas Highway Department. He even registered www.irhabi007.org as a domain, using the name and address of an American first lieutenant stationed in Iraq. When, at one point in 2004, Weisburd and his group succeeded in getting Irhabi’s service provider to shut him off, Irhabi hit the roof. He posted threats in chat rooms of how he was going to slice up Weisburd. Weisburd, who acknowledges that he always keeps a loaded gun nearby, reported the threat to the FBI.But then Irhabi started to leave a trail. On a site he was developing to post threats against targets in Italy, he left his IP address. Weisburd says Irhabi also left a different IP address on another online community he visited. Then, Weisburd says, his group did a little fishing. Internet Hagganah posted a notice on its site warning that Irhabi’s files were infected. His wounded pride as an Internet administrator must have affected his judgment, because, in reply, Irhabi became even more careless. As part of an effort to show that his files were not infected, Weisburd says, Irhabi posted a screen shot that included a third IP address—but it was only partially blurred out. According to Weisburd, all three IP addresses pointed to the Ealing area of London, and he says he passed the information to U.S. and British authorities at the time. Nearly a year and a half later, whether from that lead or from the information obtained in the Sarajevo raid, or both, Tsouli was arrested. Reportedly, it was only after his arrest that authorities realized they might have just captured Irhabi007. Since Tsouli’s arrest, no one has posted using that screen name. Calculated Risks Although Irhabi007 seems to have been involuntarily retired, the Net-based terrorist subculture could yield another star. There have even been online competitions, according to Burgess, in which prospective terrorists can display their skills, such as a competition to fire a rocket and hit a U.S. military target in Iraq. But this isn’t American Idol. If it’s a War on Terrorism, why aren’t the sites being forced to shut down by Western authorities? “While these sites can present a danger, they give us a great window into [terrorists’] mindset,” says Moran, the intelligence analyst. As an example, he cites a recent, foiled plot to blow up buildings in Toronto—with information apparently provided, in part, by al-Qaeda-leaning chat rooms. News reports indicated that the Internet was used for communication, coordination, and recruitment in that plot. There has also been speculation that some of the al-Qaeda sites are actually “honey pots”—fake sites set up by Western intelligence agencies as part of a Net-based sting operation, in order to capture such information as the credit card numbers used to buy videos.Some have wondered if, by not immediately trying to shut down sites that post information about making bombs and poisons, authorities aren’t taking a fatal risk in the name of acquiring intelligence about a bigger plan. Not to worry, says George Smith, a senior fellow at the public-policy and research organization GlobalSecurity.org. Smith dismisses the effectiveness of al-Qaeda’s online training information. “The level of sophistication is equivalent to what teenagers were distributing about 10 or 15 years ago,” he says. While al-Qaeda and its sympathizers see the Internet as another weapon in the hands of radical Islam, it is in fact “a double-edged sword,” Moran says. Terrorists can recruit, propagandize, even exchange tactical information, he says, but they are also vulnerable. “They can be tracked down.” As in the jungle, successfully tracking down targets requires that they leave a trail. Some observers believe that al-Qaeda Internet operatives are not much more than serious amateurs, unable to hide their activities very well. Moran notes that in discovering a reported plot

Page 14

targeting commuter trains in New York, authorities found that the planners were using the Internet in “unsophisticated ways,” such as communicating without using a proxy server. This made their trail easier to follow. GlobalSecurity.org’s Smith describes the general level of Internet security maintained by al-Qaeda as “really lousy,” and says that its sites are routinely invaded by people within U.S. borders. Moran goes so far as to call the online terrorists “script-kiddies,” a derogatory term for inexperienced hackers who use programs developed by others. For example, he says, in trying to promote denial-of-service attacks, the jihadists have simply instructed sympathizers to “download this tool and drop in an address.” But primitive can be deadly. After all, primitive box cutters and a basic understanding of how to fly a plane brought down the World Trade Center. What happens when al-Qaeda learns the Internet equivalent of flying a plane? It means that it will be much harder to track and decipher the terrorist network, Moran says. For example, if al-Qaeda ever mastered heavy encrypting of communications, he says, it could lead to major problems. “And al-Qaeda might only need that info to stay encrypted for 24 hours. NSA (the National Security Agency) might be able to decode it, but maybe not fast enough.”Moran says he believes al-Qaeda is trying out new tactics, such as saving communications as “drafts” within free e-mail accounts but never sending them. If the message is never sent, it can never be tracked. But anyone can log onto a free e-mail client with a screen name and password and read the information contained in the draft. There have also been unconfirmed reports that al-Qaeda has used steganography, the process of writing hidden messages that only the intended recipient will recognize. Al-Qaeda’s particular brand of steganography encodes media files—such as a photo—with secret messages that can be seen only at the binary level, when the photo is reduced to its bits and analyzed. Not all observers believe that al-Qaeda’s Internet operations are junior-grade. Some experts, such as terrorist researcher Evan Kohlmann, have said that al-Qaeda is quite sophisticated in its use of the Internet. And another terrorism expert, Bruce Hoffman of the Rand Corporation, recently testified before Congress that not enough is being done to counter al-Qaeda’s propaganda on the Net. Finally Paying Attention Regardless of al-Qaeda’s level of expertise, there are indications that Western authorities are finally paying serious attention to what might collectively be referred to as al-Qaeda.com. They apparently now realize that al-Qaeda’s use of the Internet, as described in a 2003 study by the U.S. Army War College, constitutes “an outstanding command-and-control mechanism.” And at least some authorities realize the obstacles the West faces in bringing down such a mechanism, including a lack of native Arabic speakers who are also computer experts. “The tipping point might have been the London bombings of July 7, 2005,” Moran says. Like the 9/11 plotters, the terrorists in that attack, which took 52 lives and wounded about 700, apparently used the World Wide Web in planning the catastrophe. A tipping point seems to have been reached by al-Qaeda as well, in that the Net has become invaluable in both the ideological and actual war against the West. Tsouli, his presumptive alter ego Irhabi007, and al-Zarqawi are now out of the Internet business. But they have helped to establish the notion of online jihad as war by other means. By the end of World War II, the Allies had the upper hand in radar and planes, and we owned the sky. Whoever owned the sky, won the war. But no one owns the Internet. And, at this point in history, it is not yet clear if the online War on Terrorism will ever fall off the radar.Table of Contents

Page 15

In the Trenches From the Strategy Page, August 9, 2006What the military currently calls Information Warfare, was first developed two decades ago. Partly this was in response to the mass media turning on the military during the Vietnam War, and partly it was the beginning of Republican party realization that there were better ways available to deal with the media for achieving political ends. Information War is nothing new, nor is military efforts to cope with the influence of media on wartime, or peacetime, operations. For example, during the American Civil War, military commanders, and politicians, on both sides, learned to deal with the relatively new mass media. The development of the telegraph, and the steam powered printing press (making cheap newspapers a mass market product), in the previous two decades, had revolutionized media. News traveled fast, and to most of the population could now afford to buy the papers and react to the news. That had never happened before, and politicians and generals had to deal as best they could. By the 1920s, the army appointed its first media liaison officer, Douglas MacArthur, a man who would go on to prove he was a master at manipulating the media (and the media still hates him for it.) MacArthur’s methods for dealing with the media in wartime were not used during the Vietnam War, and that lesson has not been forgotten. MacArthur believed you had to control the message at all times, and maintain the right image. MacArthur made it look easy because he was also a brilliant general, winning victories using innovative tactics and techniques. MacArthur had his flaws, but understanding the media was not one of them. The most senior commanders have been using Information War for a long time. In the early 19th century, Napoleon Bonaparte tightly controlled the distribution of news in France and his conquered territories. Even further back, Julius Caesar and Alexander the Great controlled what version of events was distributed as official, or even unofficial, news. And in ancient Egypt, where a permanent record of government achievements was painted or carved into the walls of government structures, archeologists have only recently discovered that many of those official records were subject to a lot of spin. Many of those ancient records, it turned out, were lies, told in order to influence public opinion. Hmmm, déjà vu and all that. For the last two decades, the American military has been trying to institutionalize Information Warfare as one of the weapons to be used in combat. While this has been easy at the highest levels of command, getting Information War tactics and techniques down to level of the fighting troops has proved more difficult. In Iraq and Afghanistan, the American military got its first chance to practice Information War at the retail level. All other wars, since the development of modern Information War in the 1980s, did not lend themselves to getting down and dirty in this department. In Iraq and Afghanistan, however, American troops found themselves operating in countries where the losing side, while defeated and out of power, insisted on fighting on, using terror and Information War as their primary weapons. The results, especially in Iraq, led to a lot of U.S. casualties (22,000 in three years). The question is, could better use of Information War changed any of this? Actually, no one is sure. The only thing that is known is that better Information War efforts would not have hurt, and probably would have helped. That’s because one of the major problems, especially in 2003 and 2004, was simply communicating with the local civilians. This was important because, while the American media tended to notice the few hostile Iraqis still operating, there were a lot more Iraqis who wanted to build a better country than the one Saddam had created. Moreover, Iraq had not had a free press for decades, and it took the better part of a year for new media to develop. Many of those news outlets that did show up, were more interested in sensational news, or biased lies, which was often not helpful for American military operations. While American military planners and trainers had developed a lot of the components needed to run a successful Information War campaign, these had not been, so to speak, “installed” in all American combat units. There were psychological warfare units, and troops trained to work on media with, and for, locals. But there was no standardized Information War organization and doctrine throughout the American military. Information War was still seen as a separate item, not one that must be integrated with combat units, just like artillery, engineer, medical or air support.

Page 16

For example, most training exercises did not include any realistic Information War action. That’s a sure sign that a new element has not yet been fully accepted. A major reason why Information War capabilities were not integrated into the combat brigades was because, for Information War to work, you needed adequate intelligence collection capabilities. Alas, intelligence is another of those areas that was undergoing a revolution. UAVs, satellite communications, the Internet, and lots of cheap computers, had given the intel people more tools, and powerful tools, than ever before. For Information War to work, there had to be close links with the intelligence people. That has been learned, and worked out, under fire during the last four years. Iraq, and to a lesser extent, Afghanistan, provided a situation where many Information War ideas could be tried out. Using media, and “viral communications” (rumors, posters and things like graffiti), to mould local civilian opinion is, is still a little too abstract for most troops to fully accept. The army and marines are each trying to integrate all that experience into Information War units and doctrine (rules and advice for how to do it) for future Information War operations. It’s still not clear if Information War has been fully accepted by the troops. When it comes to combat, the troops tend to focus on the most obvious things, like weapons and logistics. It may take a while to convince everyone that Information Warfare is here to stay, and worth the effort.Table of Contents

How Hizballah Hijacks the InternetBy Hilary Hylton, Time Magazine, 8 August 2006What do a small south Texas cable company, a suburban Virginia cable provider and Web-hosting servers in Delhi, Montreal, Brooklyn and New Jersey have in common? Since fighting broke out in Lebanon, they all have had their communications portals hijacked by Hizballah. Hackers from the militant Lebanese group are trolling the Internet for vulnerable sites to communicate with one another and to broadcast messages from Al-Manar television, which is banned in the U.S. In the cyberterrorism trade it is known as “whack-a-mole” — just like the old carnival game, Hizballah sites pop up, get whacked down and then pop up again somewhere else on the World Wide Web. “As the Israelis tighten the noose on Hizballah in Lebanon, these communication nodes become critical,” said Fred Burton, a former U.S. counterterrorism official and now vice president of Stratfor, a security consulting and forecasting company in Austin, Tex. In today’s asymmetrical warfare, the Internet is vital to groups like Hizballah who use it to recruit, raise money, communicate and propagandize, Burton said, including transmissions from Hizballah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah. The recent hijacking of a South Texas cable operator is a case study in how Hizballah moves in. The Texas cable company has an agreement with a New York-based satellite communications aggregator, which moves feeds to a variety of customers from throughout the world, including Lebanon. A technician in New York made an “improper connection,” according to an official with the cable company’s communications provider who detailed the hijack for TIME. That opening was detected by Hizballah. Al-Manar, widely considered a mouthpiece for Hizballah and categorized as a terrorist group by the U.S., linked to the small cable company’s IP (Internet Protocol) address, which can be thought of, in simple terms, as a telephone number. Hizballah essentially added an extension on that telephone line allowing their traffic to flow. Hizballah then gets the word out through e-mail and blogs that it can be found at that IP address and the hijack is complete. If the hijack is not detected, the IP address can be linked to a new domain name and that opens up the site to anyone who might search online for Al-Manar content. Hizballah uses these Web sites to run recruitment videos and post bank account numbers where supporters can donate funds. Hijackings are normally quickly discovered by the Society for Internet Research, an informal consortium of self-described “freelance counterterrorists” who sit in home offices and dens tracking jihadist activity on the Internet. In turn, they alert the media or simply call the hijacked company. Alerted to the south Texas hijack, the cable company’s communications provider reported the incident to U.S. authorities and the IP address was shut down.

Page 17

Perhaps, the most famous player of the “whack-a-mole” game is Aaron Weisburd, 42, a computer programmer who operates one of the Society’s projects from his home office in southern Illinois. His Web site, Internet Haganah — the name is an homage to Israeli paramilitary fighters — tracks Hizballah and other groups as they wander the Web. Weisburd’s hijack logs go back for several years and include the latest Hizballah hijacks since fighting began. “Notice to the jihadis in the audience,” he writes on his site. “You can’t hide.” Burton said shutting the sites down is a “double-edged sword.” As a former U.S. counterterrorism official, he sees the value of keeping the sites up so intelligence services can collect “forensic” evidence. “It’s important to see what they are saying,” he says, noting that Hizballah has resource bases in Indonesia and the tri-border area (Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay) of South America. Given Hizballah’s links to Iran, which offers its operatives diplomatic cover around the world, according to Burton, monitoring Hizballah’s Internet presence is vital as part of the “cat and mouse” game with Western intelligence. But shutting them down also limits their fundraising, recruiting and propaganda efforts, Burton said. In March, the whack-a-mole players gained a new weapon in their fight when the U.S. Treasury announced that any U.S. company found to be doing business with Al-Manar will be subject to sanctions and possible prosecution. The new rules mean that freelance counterterrorists can remind slow-moving, reluctant or even compliant Web hosters that they face financial sanctions if they do not act to shut down Al-Manar. The south Texas cable company’s communications provider was quick to alert U.S. authorities and the portal closed, but Hizballah was just as quick to play the whack-a-mole game and a new site sprang up from an Indian Web-hosting company within hours. Said Burton: “As long as the war drags on, these communication portals will be critical as Hizballah tries to get its global message out across the world.”Table of Contents

Page 18