Originally Posted by
lhrsfo
From all the WW2 movies I watched as a child, one of the first things enemies tried to do was take out the other sides comms. With IS, it would seem sensible for the US or UK (or Russia, of course) to use some drones to take out the mobile phone towers, thus making IS comms much more difficult. They would then have to rely on satellite phones and, with so much less traffic on these, it should be easier to monitor the necessary discussions.
Why ruin communication opportunities for innocent civilians in already precarious positions (as a result of being in a conflict zone), especially when the comm channels provide a means for them to try to have a bit of normalcy deserved by all people in the absence of being fairly convicted for a crime in a fair and open trial?
Don't forget that these comms also provide a means for "more responsible" actors to monitor what is going on and even to otherwise assist those who need assistance in the face of being stuck living in such messed up situations. Lots of innocent people stuck in these messed up situations use cell comm in order to try to protect themselves or otherwise minimize the risk of being harmed.
I know from personal experience that when civilian comm channels are taken out or banned, it's civilians who end up being the worst off for it. And it shows during times of natural disaster or man-made conflicts.
There has been some fascinating work done on mass movements of people that takes place in response to disasters of various sorts -- and that kind of work useful to help with crisis response/management wouldn't be possible without cell phone service in these kind of areas.
ISIL/ISIS/Daeesh don't need satellite or cell phone service in order to operate. They know full well how to operate using the same kind of means we used in WW2: pigeons, sight-lines, and wire-lines set for point to point comm.
