Islamic State using ‘messenger app’ to communicate in Pakistan

The most important feature of Telegram message is that it is ‘self-destructible'

PESHAWAR: The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (IS) terrorists have been using the Telegram messenger app to communicate instead of calling each other on mobile phones to avoid detection and so far their strategy has proved more than successful, a police official asking for anonymity told The Express Tribune on Thursday.

He said the Telegram application had proved beneficial to communicate and the most important feature of the app message is that it is ‘self-destructible’.



“Once a voice message is sent via Telegram app it is deleted automatically from the phone so you have no back-up and that is why it is currently impossible for the police and intelligence agencies to intercept it,” he said, adding that this app was the only way of communication in addition to verbal communication in which messengers (people) are sent to inform other members.

He said, “They know very well that communication and talking on the mobile phone is very dangerous as it could be intercepted easily these days so they have devised a very clever policy using this app on one side and have literally reinvented the wheel by using the old and time-tested technique of using people to deliver messages.” The police and security forces lack the technology to intercept this app.

“With the passage of time, the introduction of technology has changed the entire scenario. It is a game changer, especially when policemen have a phobia for technology while the terrorists do not,” he added.



The official claimed that pre-activated SIMs are still available openly for a few thousand rupees and these terrorists buy them.

“Some of the shopkeepers are still in the business of selling pre-activated SIMs due to higher profit margins. They trick innocent people and take their fingerprints, as well as CNIC numbers, and activate SIMs on it that are then sold to criminals and all kinds of people and these SIMs are used by terrorists also,” he lamented.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 10^th, 2017.