Bollywood music is the latest weapon being used to fend off Islamic State, or ISIS, militants.
British special forces are blasting the Bollywood music in Sirte, Libya, as a psychological warfare tactic to annoy or unnerve ISIS fighters, who
object to the culture, The Mirror reported.
In Libya to train local forces on how to push out ISIS, the forces are playing Hindi film songs over intercepted ISIS communications channels and from cars left near checkpoints.
Along with tormenting the insurgents, the effort is an attempt to demonstrate defiance and contempt for their regime, which has banned the music and western culture as frivolous and un-religious, The Mirror said. The forces also hope to reveal information about ISIS based on the militants' reaction.
"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," an unnamed source told the U.K. newspaper.
India Today called the songs weapons of mass "distraction" and pointed out that they are "wildly popular" in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
A similar strategy was used during the invasion of Panama in 1989, when U.S. troops blasted music by
Elvis Presley and Guns N’ Roses, RT noted.
Guantanamo Bay detainees have also been subjected to loud rap music while being deprived of sleep.
“I could hear people knocking their heads against the walls and the doors, screaming their heads off,” One-time British Guantanamo Bay detainee Binyam Mohamed said, according to RT.
Twitter users had mixed reactions to the strategy.