ICQ software boosted US Air Force performance in Afghanistan

The Israeli-developed program may be used in a US attack on Iraq.

Ron Ben Yishai   3 Nov 02    

Instant messaging program ICQ, which was developed in Israel, brought about a breakthrough in US military communications, and made US forces in Afghanistan many times more efficient, US business magazine “Business 2.0” recently reported, citing Pentagon sources. published in New York. It is likely that the program will also be used in the planned US attack on Iraq.

The October edition of Business 2.0 reveals new details about the telecommunications aspect of the fighting in Afghanistan. It emerges that at the start of the US offensive, bombing of Al Qaeda and Taliban strongholds and camps was inaccurate and ineffective. This was mainly because there was no direct, high-speed communication between special US forces that gathered intelligence on the ground, and the bomber aircraft they were guiding.

The special forces troops, who were assisted by local collaborators and satellite navigation aids, succeeded in gathering precise intelligence about targets, and passed it on to operations staff headquarters in the US. However, by the time the information arrived, was processed into target coordinates for the aircraft, and was transferred to the aircraft operating in Afghan skies, it was often too late to exploit it. In many cases, Al Qaeda and Taliban fighters disappeared from the area before the aircraft had taken off on their missions.

To overcome this problem, members of the Pentagon communications and intelligence staffs decided to limit the scope of communication and data transfer, and instructed the special forces to transfer information about targets directly to aircraft overhead as they were en route to attack, using portable computers with satellite phones uplink and ICQ software.

ICQ is an instant text messaging program for use over the Internet, developed in the 1990s by an Israeli software development team headed by Dr. Yossi Vardi.

Mirabilis, the company that developed and operated ICQ, was sold to America Online in 1998 for $407 million in cash. Vardi, his son Arik and the other Israeli programmers, continue to operate and develop the product under AOL, serving 100 million subscribers worldwide. The company has also developed ICQ applications for communication between computers and cell phones.

Upper echelons at the Pentagon term the dramatic success of instant messaging between ground troops and fighter planes a breakthrough that will influence the future of battlefield communications as a whole, despite a good deal of opposition to the system within the US Army and the Pentagon.

All indications are that, in the event of an attack on Iraq, the US plans to make widespread use of air attacks assisted by special forces on the ground. Chances are good, therefore, that as in Afghanistan, communications using instant messaging will also be put to use in an attack on Iraq.

Published by Globes [online] - www.globes.co.il - on 03 November 2002