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Christina Lamb and Mohammed Shehzad, Islamabad
THEY banned television, photographs and computers, and burnt books containing pictures of people. But now the Taliban are resorting to the technologies they once condemned as “tools of the devil†to refocus world attention on what they see as their forgotten war in Afghanistan.
Resentful of the scale of coverage of Iraq, the Taliban leadership is to launch a media offensive and has distributed cameras to commanders to provide footage for television stations and for a monthly colour magazine. It also plans to “embed” journalists on its operations.
“We have realised that weapons and manpower are not enough to win battles,” said Naeem Hekmat, a Taliban commander, speaking by satellite telephone. “You need other weapons, too, such as the media. It is a very powerful tool to defeat your enemy.
“We are killing Americans but not getting the attention that the Iraqi freedom fighters are getting. We keep being portrayed in the western media as ‘disappointed’ and ‘frustrated’, which is not true. So now we will be using digital cameras and video cameras so . . . the world will know the truth.”
The commander added: “We made a mistake by shutting down TV. Our hostility to the technology tarnished our image and gave our enemies ample opportunities to malign us.”
An estimated 18,000 Taliban fled to Pakistan during the US bombing of Afghanistan in late 2001 and subsequently regrouped. Their leader, Mullah Mohammad Omar, has yet to be captured, despite a $25m (£14m) price on his head, and the organisation has enjoyed a resurgence since last summer, with frequent rocket attacks on American camps and killings of aid workers. More than a third of Afghanistan has been declared a no-go area by the United Nations.
“Up until now the Taliban had almost disappeared from the radar screen but the reality is they are much stronger than the perception either of the public or the international community,” said M J Gohel, director of the Asia Pacific Foundation, an independent London-based terrorism think tank.
However, US military deaths in Afghanistan are small — 31 last year and 16 this year, compared with 426 in Iraq since the war ended.
The US has increased the number of troops in Afghanistan by 4,000 to 15,000 for an offensive, apparently with the intention of capturing Osama Bin Laden before the presidential election in November.
Taliban commanders say the photographic equipment was provided by supporters in Pakistan’s ISI military intelligence, which helped create the Taliban in the 1990s.
May 1, 2004 at 10:03 PM in Middle East | Permalink | TrackBack (40) | Top of page | Blog Home