December
26, 2006: The recent death of Taliban senior commander Mullah Akhtar Mohammad
Osmani, was apparently the result of British and American intelligence troops
connecting Osmani to a specific satellite phone, and then using that to locate
Osmani and kill him with a smart bomb. A British electronic reconnaissance
aircraft monitored satellite telephone traffic over the area, so that when
Osmani made a call, his location was quickly found and tracked.
Taliban
and al Qaeda members are well aware of the risks of using cell or satellite
phones. But they are greatly restricted if they do not use wireless
communications, and they try to mitigate the danger by talking in code words,
and changing phones frequently. If the bad guys get sloppy with the codes, or
changing phones, they will get nailed, like Osmani did. Often, identifying a
terrorist phone will not lead to a smart bomb attack, but to monitoring the
communications in order to obtain more information. But for major players like
Osmani (the number three guy in the Taliban hierarchy) getting made was a death
sentence.
