[R-G] Military plans to spam Afghans this summer

[Anthony Fenton]

http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/article/632693

Military plans to spam Afghans this summer
Canadian military propagandists plan to bombard Afghans' cellphones  
with texts and contest offers
May 12, 2009
Allan Woods
OTTAWA BUREAU

OTTAWA – Canada plans to boost its propaganda reach by tapping into  
mobile phones in Afghanistan to send text messages, run contests and  
drive listeners to its military-run, Pashto-language radio station.

It's a fairly crude, transparent tactic in the high science of counter- 
insurgency, but the military sees it as a way to better connect with  
local Afghans in a war-torn land where the cellphone is one of the  
fastest growing, and only reliable, means of communication.

The capability, to be set up this summer, will encourage Afghans to  
sign up for text-message alerts from defence officials and to enter  
military-run contests awarding prizes to lucky locals, according to  
public tendering documents.

It will also let Afghans send text messages to Rana-FM, a radio  
station set up by the military in 2006, and have them read on the air,  
half a world away at the broadcast centre in Kingston, Ont. The  
station, whose name means "light" in Pashto, is staffed by Afghan- 
Canadians, and mixes messages from Canadian and coalition officials  
with news programming and popular music aimed at teenage and young  
adult listeners in Kandahar.

Rana-FM manager David Bailey described the station in 2007 as key to  
"winning the information war" against the Taliban and demystifying  
Canada and Canadians for Afghan listeners. Defence department  
officials were unable yesterday to comment on the new text-message  
initiative.

The hearts-and-minds effort could serve a double purpose by allowing  
Canada's secretive intelligence arm, the Communications Security  
Establishment, to gain a foothold in the Kandahar community, track  
cellphone signals and listen in on conversations, experts say.

"There are other capabilities that come with cellphone information,  
certainly," said John Thompson, an intelligence expert with the  
Mackenzie Institute in Toronto. "But I think one of the problems is  
that southern Afghanistan is not one of the most well-serviced markets  
in the world for that sort of thing."

The number of mobile phone users in Afghanistan has grown to about 5  
million from virtually none at the time of the Sept. 11, 2001,  
attacks, according to reports and estimates. One estimate suggested  
150,000 new users were buying the phones each month in the country.

John Adams, head of the CSE, revealed in 2007 that his agency is  
heavily involved in the Afghan mission, which accounts for about a  
quarter of its work. Though he wouldn't elaborate on the nature of  
that work, intelligence experts say Canadian agents in Ottawa would be  
tracking emails, cellphone calls and signals and various other scraps  
of information soldiers pick up from insurgent groups.

The Taliban's use of mobile phones for both operational and propaganda  
purposes is well-documented. A report last year by the respected  
International Crisis Group noted insurgent leaders are adept at  
communicating with their counterparts by phone and text message to co- 
ordinate movements and that they use cellphone signals to detonate  
roadside bombs. They also use the phones to keep in touch with foreign  
journalists and threaten locals suspected of collaborating with  
western military forces.

But the Taliban are also aware that NATO forces are watching and able  
to track their communications. They take great steps to try to fly  
under the intelligence radar, said Wesley Wark, an intelligence expert  
at the University of Toronto.

As a result, he said, establishing a fairly basic text-messaging  
system likely won't do much to help Canadian soldiers capture bomb  
makers and Taliban commanders, though it could help gauge the mood of  
the population as Ottawa's new strategy of development work and  
intensified aid efforts catches on.

"You could see it in an auxiliary fashion as a kind of soft-edged tool  
that might be useful for intelligence purposes, but more to keep your  
finger on the pulse of Afghan opinion," Wark said.