Kurdish Fighters Now Using Google In Fight Against ISIS
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There’s probably no situation that shows the change in warfare technology as much as battles against a terror militia. Proven as a central operation method in Afghanistan and Iraq, the U.S. had used drones to attack from the sky, thus decreasing the risk of casualties on their side. Satellite imaging had also been used as evidence of mass crimes commited by terror organizations, such as the one commited by ISIS in Iraq. The internet is constantly being used as platform for attacks, trying to damage critical infrastructure and hurt a country’s security and economic well-being.
Now, Kursidh fighters are reported to be using tablets and Google Earth to track their battle lines and coordinate close air support with the U.S. military. The deployment of free-to-use software developed by the American computing giant shows, perhaps more than anything, the changing ways of modern war.
The Kurdish militia has proved to be one of the U.S.’s most effective allies in Syria but one of the reasons for this reliance on Google’s map database is that U.S. military satellite maps are considered too sensitive to be shared with allied fighters from non-NATO countries. U.S. soldiers reportedly resorted to Google Earth to help fill that gap, and one defense contractor has developed an app called iSpatial that relies on Google’s maps API to provide information to the American soldiers and diplomats. Despite the U.S. “holding back” information, there is no question regarding the involvement and cooperation of the United States with the Kurdish fighter in their battle against ISIS. New York Times reporter Rukmini Callimachi writes from the battlefield that american military coordinators sent a map to Kurdish fighters with a yellow circle marked out, instructing them to take refuge there while the U.S. bombed nearby ISIS targets.
She writes that yellow spots on the map indicate where fellow Kurdish fighters are stationed, while red spots show the coordinates of buildings which ISIS fighters have taken over. The Kurdish fighters send the red coordinates to a handler at a U.S. military operations room as its members are under fire from ISIS fighters; the handler sends back coordinates where the fighters should take cover. Once it’s confirmed that everyone is safely within the yellow coordinates, the U.S. strikes.
With a globally popular operating system and app like those developed by Google, the Kurds can now just send the GPS coordinates to the cloud and wait for an air-strike to follow.
The Pentagon has confirmed that the U.S. military has been working with Syrian Kurds and other groups, but it has not confirmed that the U.S. has been sent any airstrike coordinates. Google did not respond to a request for comment about this use of its software, and the Defense Department declined to comment.
