US cyberattacks can expose Islamic State communications

“We’re also using cyber tools to disrupt ISIL’s ability to operate and communicate over the virtual battlefield”, said U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter here at a Pentagon briefing, referring to another acronym of the group.

In addition to annihilating the Islamic State on the ground with bombs, US forces are also taking the fight against ISIS online with new, top secret cyber weapons. Most importantly, we don’t want the enemy to know when, where and how we’re conducting cyber operations.

Dunford, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, noted the next major step in Iraq-to retake Mosul-is already well underway even though Iraqi officials have been skeptical that the task could be accomplished this year. “In other words, we’re trying to both physically and virtually isolate ISIL, limit their ability to conduct command and control, limit their ability to communicate with each other, limit their ability to conduct operations locally and tactically”.

“Conceptually, that’s the same thing we’re trying to do in the cyberworld”, Dunford said Monday.

Like any government, the Islamic State has had to establish a bureaucracy to manage its territory, which requires computer and communications networks.

The U.S.-led coalition is working to disrupt I.S.’s command chain “to cause them to lose confidence in their networks”, Carter said. The U.S. military is further straining its resources to address Russia’s aggression against the Ukraine and China’s military buildup of islands in the South China Sea. The New York Times recently reported that the U.S. prepared a campaign for their use, Nitro Zeus, in the event that a diplomatic effort to halt the program broke down.

The acknowledgement of the cyber operation against ISIS is an unprecedented move from the Pentagon.

Blocking all communications in territory held by the militants, for example, could hamper United States collection of intelligence on their locations, operations and plans.

The reforms come at a time when the Army is cutting its forces and each of the services has struggled to afford the training opportunities and depot repairs needed to maintain readiness due to continued combat operations against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, and now Afghanistan and Libya.

Its deployment represents increased USA military activity on the ground against Islamic State, exposing American forces to greater risk – something President Barack Obama has done only sparingly.

The U.S. military disclosed last week that those U.S. forces helped opposition forces recapture the strategic Syrian town of al-Shadadi from Islamic State.

More knowledge about the group’s operations is expected to be discovered, Carter said.

Operators from the US Cyber Command, the young military command twinned to the National Security Agency, have launched assaults on nodes, overloading them with data, US defense chief Ashton Carter said on Monday.