Syrian Rebels Use iPads and Smartphones to Aid Weaponry

By Colin Daileda | Sep 18, 2013

In the absence of a military infrastructure, Syrian rebels have turned to smartphones and tablets to track, aim mortars at, and plot attacks against government troops loyal to President Bashar al-Assad, according to U.S. arms and defense experts.

A Reuters photo taken on Sept. 15 in Damascus depicts a member of a branch of the Free Syrian Army holding an iPad up to a mortar. Business Insider reporter Paul Szoldra speculated that the rebel was using an app to level the mortar tube before firing.

 

What types of apps the rebels choose to aid their assaults is not always certain, but experts agree that they're used on a regular basis.

"They don't have sophisticated intelligence devices or other means, so they're relying on what's available," Jeff White, a defense fellow at the Washington Institute, told Mashable. "If they can use Google Earth or Wikimapia to get a regime location [...] that's something that's good enough."

White said Syrian rebels may not have targeting radars or sound-range devices, but many of them understand how to set up artillery, rockets and mortars. When that skill is aided by an iPad app that levels the tube before launch or when a rebel measures the distance between himself and regime troops on his smartphone, Free Syrian Army artillery become that much more powerful.

In using the tools available to them,Syrian rebels are part of a longstanding tradition of resourceful Davids battling well-equipped Goliath, according to experts.

"This goes back to the peasants turning their pitchforks into weapons, the frontiersmen in U.S. history using their hunting rifles in Valley Forge," Peter Singer, the Brookings Institution's director of the Center for 21st Century Security and Intelligence, told Mashable.

The difference today is that almost anyone can grab a tablet or another civilian device that has the capacity to help Syrian rebels fight a war, Singer added.

"At one point, if you wanted a spy-satellite photo of the ground, you had to launch multi-billion-dollar spy satellites," Singer said. "Now, you can just Google Earth it."

White and Singer both said rebels in Libya used laptops, smartphones and other tech in similar ways when they overthrew former dictator Muammar Gaddafi. Singer went even further, mentioning that the Taliban used Google Earth to help plot some of their attacks in Afghanistan, and that advanced mapping capabilities even helped U.S. forces during the Gulf War.

"Saddam [Hussein] didn't think we could attack through the desert because we'd get lost," Singer said. "Well, he didn't bank on this thing called GPS."

Many rebel militias have shelled areas thought to be occupied by regime troops, and then hoped they were correct, according to White. But with the help of tablets, laptops and smartphones, enemy targets come into focus.

"That is the kind of technology that professional soldiers a generation ago dreamed of," Singer added.

Image: Reuters/ Mohamed Abdullah