The Botswana Defence Force Military Intelligence and the Directorate of intelligence and Security services have put together cutting edge electronics warfare machinery against the private media to help the Botswana Democratic Party win elections next month ÔÇô Sunday Standard investigations have revealed. The Military Intelligence has recently completed assembling five mobile and fixed vehicle mounted electronic warfare equipment procured from the Israeli defence company Elbit Systems. Intelligence agents from the Military Intelligence completed training on the new equipment and ran test runs last month, jamming all three private radio stations: Duma fm, Gabz fm and Yarona fm for about ten minutes.
Three of the five state of the art pieces of equipment will be deployed at relay stations in Gantsi, Thebephatswa air base in Molepolole and Selibe Phikwe while the remaining two will be used in mobile electronic warfare attacks. The equipment which has data transfer, jamming and monitoring equipment can be used against landline telephones, fax machines, cellular telephones computer equipment and any piece of equipment that emits radio signals. The equipment will be manned by MI personnel who will be seconded to the DISS during special operations by the DISS. It is understood that the equipment, which has been tested on private radio stations will be used to jam and monitor private stations as well as newsrooms of private newspapers ahead of the 2014 elections.
The newly installed on land Elbit system will join the Elbit Systems Hermes 450 an Israeli medium size multi-payload unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) designed for tactical long endurance missions that was already in use among local intelligence agents. The Elbit Systems Hermes 450 has an endurance of over 20 hours, with a primary mission of reconnaissance, surveillance and communications relay The DISS has also put together a team of intelligence agents and officers from the Broadhurst Police Station led by DISS head of counter terrorism, Chris Nthipo to put Sunday Standard editors Outsa Mokone, Spencer Mogapi and the newspaper attorney Dick Bayford under surveillance.
The brief of the operation is that the team should stage break ins and burglaries to recover any information that changes hand between newspaper editors and their sources. The Sunday Standard was informed that the recent court order to seize Sunday Standard editor’s computer and other electronic equipment was part of the plan to help the team access the newspaper’s sources and confidential data.
