[aristeides]

The U.S. was greatly assisted by a sophisticated “elint” (electronic eavesdropping) operation involving good cooperation by US, Australian, and British intelligence.

As the terms are normally used in the intelligence community, "SIGINT" (signals intelligence) consists of: (1) "COMINT" (communications intelligence) (voice and other text communications) and (2) "ELINT" (electronic intelligence) (other signals).

Since the story talks about things like intercepted telephone conversations (COMINT), I think he should have used the term "SIGINT", rather than "ELINT".

[AmericanInTokyo]

Thanks. Looks like they had both sigint and elint, plus of course a good bushel full of humint there on the ground! :-)

[ASA Vet]

Actually both Comint and Elint could be collected on a cell phone.