"Administration to begin jamming Taliban frequencies"

R Sale, via SST

" The Obama administration plans to launch an information warfare program that will disrupt Taliban command and control, and counter Taliban propaganda broadcasts, according to U.S. officials.

Using special signals intelligence aircraft, called EC-130 Compass Call electronic warfare planes, advanced U.S. technology will be used to jam the frequencies Taliban commanders use to talk to each other, impeding the jihadis’ ability to plan attacks, mass and deploy forces for staging ambushes, sabotage roads or attack allied convoys going to Afghanistan, these sources said....

The new U.S. jamming effort will also suppress an even more sinister Taliban operation that involves a whole network of FM radio frequencies in the tribal areas of Pakistan that have been used to broadcast the names of Afghani or Pakistani members of government and security officials who are targets for assassination, U.S. officials said. Former U.S. intelligence officials said that hundreds of these people have later been killed as a result of the broadcasts.

U.S. officials said that this jamming effort marks a new era in waging a more aggressive information war against the Taliban. “They have been whipping our ass in this area so far,” one U.S. intelligence official said.... “The purpose is to shape the information battlefield,” said a U.S. official.

“Jamming is a force denier, it adds an unpredictable element that denies the enemy the ability to coordinate, to mount unified movements, to frame surprise attacks,” said another official...........

According to U.S. officials, the Obama administration is considering supplying the Pakistan government with advanced U.S.-built jamming equipment and advisors which could include Compass Call aircraft."