MI6 targets ISIS servers and drone platforms

Nahla Abdel Moneim

ISIS has relied on current electronic progress as a variable to adapt the technological tools to carry out terrorist tasks, and thus the confrontation has become associated with the parallel war on the real and virtual reality, which is what the MI6, the British intelligence agency, applied to weaken the organization and disperse its communication platforms.

Through a secret cyber operation, the United Kingdom was able to undermine the ISIS network on the internet, whether the sites used for mobilization and recruitment or propaganda sites, or the platforms through which the elements communicate with leaders at different levels, in addition to interfering with telephone communications and undermining private networks used to operate unmanned aerial vehicles (drones).

The Financial Times, which quoted the British intelligence report on the destruction of important parts of the ISIS communication networks, indicated that European governments were afraid of ISIS using drones in major operations against Western interests or transporting explosives through them. Young Europeans, via the websites used, were inconveniencing the authorities and threatening dangerous consequences for the region’s security.

British intelligence targets ISIS servers

Jeremy Fleming, director of the UK Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), the intelligence agency concerned with communications and cybersecurity, and the head of UK Strategic Command, Patrick Sanders, have said that the country has an important unit to deal with enemies digitally in order to protect the kingdom from the attacks, which was confirmed by Prime Minister Boris Johnson, according to the Financial Times.

The two officials stated that ISIS is using electronic advances in order to communicate more easily between its elements, to recruit new elements, and to carry out terrorist operations, and therefore, the goal of the group that carried out the British attack was to transform that strategy on which ISIS relies into a security loophole to break it up and undermine its movement internationally.

Military and cyber wars to defeat ISIS

Despite the British intelligence acknowledging that the past three years witnessed a major cyber attack against ISIS, and the United States had implemented the same strategy, perhaps in cooperation with London, the available information about destroying ISIS servers was not sufficient, although ISIS members became distrustful of some texts sent across the sites due to their suspicions.

The intelligence officials added that the cyber attacks carried out included attacks on the ground with the joint international military force and with the help of the Iraqi army to ensure the success of the attack, the weak communication between elements and the difficulty in directing groups or dealing with drones. Through these operations the British leadership made sure that the cyber attacks achieved a concrete amount of goals required to wipe out the terrorist organization.

Implications of cyber warfare on ISIS

In addition to the military attack that the forces launched in parallel with the cyber attack to know the real effects on the organization, the aspects that were mentioned by the intelligence services as targets for destruction were a major problem in the multiplicity of the terrorist organization’s strongholds and the expansion of their positions.

The recruitment operations and propaganda wars that were adopted to promote the organization’s power despite the military strikes it receives are among the pillars in the organization’s regional spread, especially in Africa, and therefore the destruction of these servers will affect the collective and individual communication processes between the organization’s elements and will threaten confidence in the information and orders received by them, not knowing whether they are from the leadership or from the international authorities attacking the platforms.