UK troops blast Bollywood songs as new weapon against Islamic State

A Pakistani-born British army intelligence officer came up with the idea that Bollywood tunes would annoy IS

When you’re up against one of the deadliest terrorist organisations in the world, you use all weapons on hand, even musical ones.

That’s just what the British special forces are doing to fight Islamic State (IS) in Libya. They came up with the idea after a Pakistani-born British army intelligence officer told troops that Bollywood tunes would annoy IS.



British troops are training local forces in how to push out IS, but they are there in a non-combat role only, except if attacked.

The psychological operations unit, which is part of a force known as Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), intercepted the insurgents’ communications and blasted them with Bollywood chart music.

“We needed to unnerve militants and at the same time use some sort of passive measure to gauge their force strength in the area we are working and it went well,” a senior source said.

The militants have imposed ‘Sharia’ law inside Sirte and have banned anything western or frivolous and the Bollywood songs are seen as a huge insult.



Apart from psychologically dominating the terrorist organisation, the move reveals the militants’ reaction time in getting to the source of the music and in how much force, revealing their weak points to watching troops.

It also serves to discredit the gunmen with locals as it shows defiance and contempt for their regime.

This article originally appeared on Mirror.