West directs spies, information-warfare at Libya

Libyan rebels

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
Along with airborne surveillance and the bombing of targets, Western nations in charge of imposing a no-fly-zone over Libya are directing their intelligence and information-warfare arsenals against the Libyan regime. British newspaper The Daily Mail reports that MI6, the UK’s primary external intelligence agency, is sharing with the British military its lists of telephone numbers belonging to senior Libyan military officials. The latter are now receiving calls from British civilian or military intelligence officers prompting them to defect. The paper cited “a senior source” who claimed MI6 is warning senior Libyan military officers that the Royal Air Force has “the GPS coordinates” of their command posts and that “it could be fatal to remain loyal to the Libyan leader” Muammar al-Gaddafi. Presumably, the calls are conducted in the Arabic language. They also do not appear to be pre-recorded, unlike those directed by the Israel Defense Forces at Palestinians during the 2008-2009 Israel-Gaza conflict. The “senior source” told The Mail that the same technique “worked in Iraq” in convincing senior military commanders to either defect or —in most cases— abandon their posts. It is difficult to estimate the potential impact of the ‘personal phone call’ technique in Libya, because Western spy agencies have found it difficult to acquire reliable information about the country’s governing elite. Meanwhile, amateur radio spotters in Europe report that NATO PsyOps operations include the broadcasting of warning messages directed at Libyan pilots. The message “if you attempt to leave port, you will be attacked and destroyed immediately” can be heard here in English, French and Arabic. While all this is going on, Agence France Presse reports that Western reconnaissance satellites are closely monitoring a site in the Libyan desert, south of the city of Sirte, where experts believe that the Gaddafi regime has stockpiled some 10 metric tons of mustard sulfate and sarin gas precursor.