Rebels Hijack Gadhafi’s Phone Network
April 13th, 2011Read, U.S. Has Secret Tools to Force Internet on Dictators for context and then you tell me who you think pulled this off. While the story below describes a much different technical solution than what’s described in the latter story, there’s a lot happening that’s spooky.
If Ousama Abushagur is just a, “31-year-old Libyan telecom executive raised in Huntsville, Ala.,” I’m the Easter Bunny:
By March 21, most of the main pieces of equipment had arrived in the U.A.E. and Mr. Abushagur was ready to ship them to Benghazi with three Libyan telecom engineers, four Western engineers and a team of bodyguards.
But Col. Gadhafi’s forces were still threatening to overrun the rebel capital and trying to bomb its airport. Mr. Abushagur diverted the team and their equipment to an Egyptian air base on the Libyan border. Customs bureaucracy cost them a week, though Egypt’s eventual approval was another show of Arab support for rebels. Egypt’s governing military council couldn’t be reached for comment.
Four Western engineers and team of bodyguards, eh? And then, upon learning that their destination in Libya was under threat of attack, this crew wound up at an Egyptian airbase and eventually moved the gear into Libya somehow. Would you be able to fly a planeload of mobile phone equipment and mercenaries onto an Egyptian airbase and then be allowed to go on your merry way into Libya? I don’t think I’d have much luck with that myself. I wonder what kind of connections one would need to be able to pull off something like that? (Rhetorical question.)
Also, when Huwei refused to sell the “rebels” the necessary telecommunications equipment, a “hybrid technical solution” was arranged via UAE. Ah ok, so Ousama Abushagur uses UAE as a proxy to purchase the gear and then he heads off with his Libyan engineers, four “Western engineers” and some mercenaries.
This is a joint CIA/NSA operation, but the Wall Street Journal isn’t going there this morning.
Update: Wired Isn’t Going There Either
This is from: How Libya’s Rebels Got Their Cell Service Back:
Notice that all of this took place without U.S. support.
Mmm hmm. Tell me another one, Spencer.
—End Update—
Via: Wall Street Journal:
A team led by a Libyan-American telecom executive has helped rebels hijack Col. Moammar Gadhafi’s cellphone network and re-establish their own communications.
The new network, first plotted on an airplane napkin and assembled with the help of oil-rich Arab nations, is giving more than two million Libyans their first connections to each other and the outside world after Col. Gadhafi cut off their telephone and Internet service about a month ago.
That March cutoff had rebels waving flags to communicate on the battlefield. The new cellphone network, opened on April 2, has become the opposition’s main tool for communicating from the front lines in the east and up the chain of command to rebel brass hundreds of miles away.
NSA and GCHQ must be loving all the new and old voice prints.
Gotta collect them all 🙂