US Training Syrian Opposition In Cyber Warfare, Online Security

by Haifa Zaaiter
Al-Monitor
June 16, 2012

Along with the ongoing the arms race in Syria, there is a different kind of “war.” This other war might even be more dangerous, simply because it is more intelligent. It is electronic warfare, reinvented by the US under the term “logistics aid.” Fighters on the battlegrounds are transformed into highly trained “cyber warriors,” capable of wielding machine guns in one hand and cameras or computers in the other. The most impressive feature of this new US war strategy must be the electronic tactics that the US has adopted, especially those that were initially developed by drug dealers or Internet hackers. Such tactics were bitterly denounced by the US in past years.

Abu Ghassan, a US-trained cyber warrior, recounts to Time magazine how he “learned to fight Bashar Assad with an AK-47, a video camera and the Internet.” Ghassan boasted that he had learned to upload footage of recorded battles on the Internet at the beginning of the training sessions, which were organized to support the Syrian opposition. He was sent to the US at the request of Syrian opposition leaders to receive advanced training. During these more complex sessions with the US State Department, Ghassan was trained on PC encryption mechanisms, government firewall workarounds and the safe use of mobile phones.

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