
US Air Force destroys ISIS HQ building after spotting it through social media - ub
http://defensetech.org/2015/06/03/us-air-force-targets-and-destroys-isis-hq-building-using-social-media/
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danso
Could the mods remove the blogspam link and link to the source?

[http://defensetech.org/2015/06/03/us-air-force-targets-
and-d...](http://defensetech.org/2015/06/03/us-air-force-targets-and-destroys-
isis-hq-building-using-social-media/)

> _“The guys that were working down out of Hurlburt, they’re combing through
> social media and they see some moron standing at this command. And in some
> social media, open forum, bragging about the command and control
> capabilities for Daesh, ISIL. And these guys go: ‘We got an in.’ So they do
> some work, long story short, about 22 hours later through that very
> building, three [Joint Direct Attack Munitions] take that entire building
> out.”_

As with many things, the devil is in the details...in this case, the "long
story short" part. And I don't see what the big deal is; social media is just
another way that information gets accidentally leaked...because it came from a
"selfie" or whatever, doesn't make it inherently less "truthy"...it just may
require different levels and methods of verification before discovered
information becomes actionable information.

And honestly, I don't think this kind of information is much more inherently
flimsy than information that comes from a paid informant, or through tortured
confessions.

~~~
latchkey
Even worse is that the photo at the top of the article is clearly a
photoshopped image of a plane over the desert. The landing gear is down. It
makes the entire thing sound like US military propaganda.

~~~
dm2
This is the image from the original article, completely different airplane
too.

[http://defensetech.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/ISIL-
Airst...](http://defensetech.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/ISIL-
Airstrike-490x331.jpg)

It's all stock images either way, nothing I saw even mentioned what kind of
jets were deployed.

~~~
Frompo
Also of note is that the airplane pictured in the original article (a F-35) is
not used in combat yet, nor is it likely that the limited numbers delivered by
now will be rated for combat any time soon unless the US gets into a serious
peer fight and actually need all their planes.

~~~
dm2
Those are F15E aircraft.

The F35 has some signature green lights that really stand out at night (I
assume they'll be turned off during combat):
[http://www.edwards.af.mil/shared/media/photodb/photos/2013/0...](http://www.edwards.af.mil/shared/media/photodb/photos/2013/05/130521-F-ZZ999-009.jpg)

Here is a picture of 2 F35s being refueled at the same time:
[http://breakingdefense.com/wp-
content/uploads/sites/3/2013/0...](http://breakingdefense.com/wp-
content/uploads/sites/3/2013/06/First_dual_F_35C_aerial_refueling.jpg)

------
88e282102ae2e5b
So let's ask the question: why did they announce this to the press? That
sounds like a whole series of classified things.

It sounds more likely to me that the US wants to weaken ISIS' influence on
social media, and by planting the idea that posting pictures results in
buildings exploding, they'll be less willing to show off images of anything
interesting.

~~~
EliRivers
Alternatively, the guy in charge of releasing things to the press gains points
for doing this, and the guy who loses points by having it released to the
press is someone else who didn't have control over it. As with all
organisations, there is politics and point-scoring and competing agendas and
just plain incompetence.

~~~
kelvin0
Well I guess that ISIS selfie guy won't get that promotion after all ...

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josefresco
It's worth noting that the US Air Force knows _exactly_ where _all_ of the
command posts are for ISIS but due to situations beyond their control
(political, civilian populations etc.), they cannot engage.

These media stories are cute, but are a mere snapshot into a very complicated
world of engagement.

~~~
remarkEon
It's probably more accurate to say that the DoD has a _reasonable level of
confidence_ for the location of _most_ of the ISIS command posts. The
"situations beyond their control" would also include those confidence
intervals. These things are dynamic and complex, like you pointed out. As
such, it's unwise to declare absolutes about things like this in warfare.

~~~
josefresco
You're right - I won't edit my post but I agree. I went overboard to contrast
the article which might make it appear as though the US military lacks this
intelligence.

------
cryoshon
So based off of the article, they bombed a building based off of a selfie
accompanied by some text... am I the only one that sees this as a horrendously
awful idea?

~~~
kaybe
Even if more went into it, it looks awefully gameable, a more extreme version
of swatting.

~~~
pjc50
This was a serious problem in the early stages of the Afghanistan campaign,
when people realised that they could settle longstanding neighbourhood
disputes by denouncing their enemies to the Americans. That was partly why the
US bombed a number of wedding convoys.

------
dba7dba
During 2nd Iraq War, some newly arrived Apache helicopters were mortared while
they were in hangar area and destroyed. US commanders were mystified because
they were in the middle of a huge base and the insurgents couldn’t have know
the exact area they were kept in.

And than they discovered that some troops has taken selfie with Apache in the
background. The photos unfortunately has GPS location embedded. Insurgents
found the photos on social media, figured out the GPS data, and figure out
exact location of the Apaches.

------
fintler
I wonder if they used something like Hunter to find it. Seems unlikely that
someone just recognized what the building looked like.

[http://www.sri.com/work/projects/hunter](http://www.sri.com/work/projects/hunter)

~~~
justaman
Where's the open source alternative :(

------
vfclists
Does it make sense that the USAF will reveal their true tactics and sources of
intel to ISIS, or do they want to help ISIS along by showing them where they
are making mistakes?

The whole story seems plain stupid.

------
dm2
Did anyone find the tweet or a screenshot of it?

