WIVES and family members of soldiers fighting in Iraq have received telephone death threats from insurgents.

Their numbers were obtained by Iraqi hackers from soldiers’ mobile telephones using an electronic device.

Disclosure of the threatening calls emerged after an investigation by the Royal Military Police into complaints from soldiers.

The threats range from claims that a husband or son is dead or will be killed in Iraq to verbal abuse, according to reports.

Many of those who have received the calls say that they were made by people with a poor command of English or with a Middle Eastern accent, it is alleged.

Des Browne, the Defence Secretary, said yesterday that the matter would be fully investigated by his department.

“Some of the families of those who are serving in Iraq have been receiving what has been described as nuisance calls,” he said.

“If there is some underlying malicious intent, that will be investigated,” he told BBC Scotland.

The extent of the problem emerged at the weekend in a restricted Army document issued to soldiers of the London Regiment, a Territorial Army unit that has soldiers in Iraq.

The document is said to warn soldiers preparing to take part in operations that insurgents have managed to obtain home telephone numbers of soldiers using an electronic intercept device that can hack into mobile telephone systems.

There have been “many instances in the last weeks of relatives and friends of personnel serving abroad on operations getting nuisance phone calls” from Iraq, the document states.

“Investigations indicate that the callers of these nuisance calls have acquired the numbers from personnel using their own mobiles to phone,” the document continues.

“This is fairly easy using today’s technology. It makes no difference whether the mobile is of United Kingdom origin or sourced abroad. The Ministry of Defence is keen to establish the extent of these nuisance calls to determine if there is a pattern to them.

“All ranks are to be aware of the possibility of receiving nuisance calls if using mobiles to phone home,” it adds.

Troops in Iraq are allowed limited use of secure satellite phones to call home. They also have access to the internet to send e-mails as well as traditional airmail letters.

With communications improving in Iraq, British mobile phones can be used in most of the main cities. Soldiers are increasingly turning to them as a way of contacting friends and family at home.

Since the start of the war, a number of high-profile soldiers have received death threats from opponents of the war.

Corporal Mark Byles, who won the Military Cross in 2004 after leading members of the Princess of Wales’s Royal Regiment in a bayonet charge, received a death threat after his story was reported in the international media.

Abu Bakr Mansha was later sentenced to eight years imprisonment for plotting to kill the soldier.

An MoD spokeswoman confirmed yesterday that nuisance telephone calls had been received by Army personnel.

“There have been reports of nuisance calls to the families of service personnel. To our knowledge, nuisance calls have been just that — nuisance calls.”

The spokeswoman declined to comment on the Territorial Army document.

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