A Taliban "night letter" discouraging cooperation with foreign forces.
Since the 2001 fall of their national government in Afghanistan Taliban propaganda has developed into a sophisticated public relations
machine that is shaping perceptions in Afghanistan and abroad. Although
polls show the movement remains unpopular, the insurgents have readily
exploited a sense of growing alienation fostered by years of broken
government promises, official corruption,
and the rising death toll among civilians from airstrikes and other
military actions. "The result is weakening public support for nation-building, even though few actively support the Taliban," says a report from the International Crisis Group,
a think tank that monitors conflicts. An American official in
Afghanistan agrees: "We cannot afford to be passive [communicators] any
longer if we're going to turn this around."
Background
A
primary focus in the Taliban's media message is the history of wars
between Christians and Muslims. The Taliban emphasize religious and
cultural differences between the West and the East, the idea of the
clash of civilizations, denounce the West as oppressive against Islam,
call the War on Terror a War against Islam, and condemn the
international forces as "occupiers and invaders." They portray the
government of Afghanistan as its puppet, and the reconstruction works as
"efforts of Christianizing Afghanistan," by using civilian casualties
of air strikes and using media reports of prisoners' abuses and
mistreatment in their favor.
Post-9/11
Early
Taliban post-December 2001 media efforts were limited and cautious,
reflecting the precarious nature of their position. The first media
spokesman appointed after the collapse of the regime was Abdul Latif Hakimi.
When Pakistani authorities arrested Hakimi on 4 October 2005, he was
replaced by as many as three successors. One of these new spokesmen, Muhammad Hanif,
was himself arrested in January 2007. The main aim of Taliban media
activities during this time was to publicize, in an often exaggerated
fashion, Taliban operations undertaken in Afghanistan. This was achieved
mainly through contact with Pakistani or international press, usually
through radio, telephone or newspapers.
Current strategy
The Taliban has become adept at portraying the West as being on the brink of defeat, at exploiting rifts between Washington and Kabul and at disparaging the administration of President Hamid Karzai
as a "puppet" state with little reach outside the capital. The group is
also attempting to assure Afghans that it has a strategy for governing
the country again, presenting a platform of stamping out corruption and
even protecting women's rights.
According to Afghan political analyst, Jelani Zwak,
who has been studying Taliban propaganda for years, "they are not only
talking about the occupation and civilian casualties. They are acting
like an alternative to this government."
Propaganda at the village level
As
the propaganda front through formal spokesmen is vital to undermine the
government and reach out to the world, the propaganda campaign at the
village level is important for recruiting youths and acquiring local
support. Mosques are favorite places for the Taliban propagandists who
always seek to convince the villagers that the international forces are
fighting against Islam and it is their holy obligation to stand up for
jihad. Quoting from different religious sources and fatwas
(Islamic decrees), they describe the international sources as occupiers
and the Karzai government as their puppet and tell the local population
that providing them support at any level is an un-Islamic act, hence
punishable by the 'holy warriors.'
Effectiveness
The Taliban know how to take advantage of Western media outlets.
For instance, on Aug. 18, the Taliban ambushed a French patrol about 30
miles from the Afghan capital, an attack that left 10 soldiers dead.
Several weeks later, militants involved in the attack appeared in a
glossy, eight-page magazine spread in Paris-Match,
a leading French newsweekly, flaunting the weapons, uniforms and
personal effects of the dead soldiers. Back in France, support for the
war dropped to a new low. Defense Minister Herve Morin noted that the Taliban "understood that public opinion is probably the Achilles' heel" of the international community.
Structure
Along
with four regional commands, the Afghan Taliban have 10 committees
which address specific issues. Some of the members of the committees are
also members of the Quetta Shura. One of these committees - Culture and Information - deals with Taliban propaganda. This committee is led by Amir Khan Mutaqqi.
- Maulvi Qudratullah Jamal
served as the Taliban's chief of propaganda from 2002-2005. He now
runs an investigative committee that deals with complaints from Afghan
citizens against local Taliban personnel. Jamal also operates as a
liaison to the Taliban's global supporters.
Spokesmen
The
formal spokesmen of the Taliban insurgents are the most active and
effective measure of the group's propaganda front. They are appointed by
Mullah Omar
through a formal decree or statement, delivered to the media by a top
aide. This was not the case with Mufti Latifullah Hakimi, the first
full-time Taliban spokesman, but all the later spokesmen were appointed
this way. After his arrest on October 4, 2005, the number of spokesmen
was increased to two: one for their activities in the southern and
western provinces (Kandahar, Zabul, Oruzgan, Helmand, Herat, Nimroz, Farah, Badghis, Ghor and Sar-e-Pul) and the other for eastern, central and northern provinces (Badakhshan, Baghlan, Balkh, Bamiyan, Daykundi, Faryab, Ghazni, Jowzjan, Kabul, Kapisa, Khost, Kunar, Kunduz, Laghman, Logar, Nangrahar, Nuristan, Paktia, Paktika, Panjsher, Parwan, Samangan, Takhar, and Wardak). Currently, Qari Mohammad Yousuf Ahmadi acts as spokesman for the former provinces and Zabiullah Mujahid for the latter.
These spokesmen never provide regular and exact information about
their fighters' casualties nor their attack tactics, operations,
commanders' whereabouts and their own identities. But they are very fast
in contacting local and international media for taking responsibility
of attacks, claims of successes, formal statements, rejecting government
officials' and international forces' claims, and other such issues.
Within the Taliban there are other groups who have their own spokesmen. For example, the Salafi (Wahhabi) Taliban in the eastern Kunar and Nuristan provinces, the Tora Bora Military Front in Nangrahar, and the Haqqani Network in the provinces bordering Waziristan
(Khost, Paktia, Paktika) have their own spokesmen who contact the media
on their own. Sometimes field commanders also contact the media for
immediate effects of their attacks because they believe in the
importance of a propaganda war. Gulbuddin Hekmatyar's Hizb-e-Islami,
which associates himself and cooperates with the Taliban because of the
"common enemy," has its own spokesman and it is observed, particularly
in the case of major attacks, for example, the attack on French troops
in Sarobi and the attack on a new year's celebrations in Kabul, that
both Taliban's and Hekmatyar's spokesman claimed to have them carried
out. Though he was member of the Taliban's leadership council, Mullah Dadullah, who was killed by the coalition forces in May 2007, had his own spokesman.
Types
The Taliban
continues to rely heavily on decentralized, conventional propaganda
efforts, which U.S. military officials say is the crucial battleground.
These include the distribution of leaflets with threats or pleas,
sermons in mosques and clandestine radio stations. As the Islamist
movement steps up conventional grass-roots propaganda efforts and
polishes its online presence—going so as far as to provide Facebook and
Twitter icons online that allow readers to disseminate press
releases—the U.S.-led coalition finds itself on the defensive in the
media war. Foreign troops are ill-equipped to offer counterarguments in
mosques and other gatherings, forcing them to rely on Afghan officials
to do so.
Internet
Internet has proved the fastest and the most useful propaganda tool for the Taliban during recent years.
- Websites: The Taliban have their own websites which are designed attractively and are full of all kinds of content such as news stories, statements, religious sermons, photos, videos, audio messages, guerrilla war guidelines and training manuals.
- Since mid-2005, the militants have maintained a multilingual website that has repeatedly changed service providers to avoid being shut down. On April 9, The Washington Post reported that, for more than a year, a Houston-based firm had unwittingly hosted a site claiming to be the voice of the "Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan" (the name of Mullah Omar's regime, deposed by the 2001 U.S. invasion) before it was identified as such. It was updated with official messages and battlefield reports that were clearly and incredulous pieces of propaganda.
- Videos: Taliban spokesmen are known for exploiting captives through propaganda such as Private Bergdahl who was captured in June 2009. Three videos of the missing private have been released, including one at Christmastime. In April 2010, a seven-minute video of the POW followed.
- Email: Email is another way of effective communication for the Taliban insurgents. Through email, they communicate with reporters, news agencies, newspapers, magazines, and radio and TV channels for taking responsibility of attacks and providing official statements and other information. Email interviews are also provided. Sometimes, clarifications and statements about some issues are sent to Pashto websites through email.
DVDs
On the
streets of the Afghan capital Kabul and the Pakistani frontier city of
Peshawar, cheap, mass-produced DVDs feature footage of coalition
atrocities: mud-brick Afghan villages leveled by allied attacks and
ordinary citizens allegedly killed by coalition fire. Also popular is a
montage from the anti-Soviet jihad of the 1980s, part of a running
effort to portray the current foreign troops as "invaders." Other discs
show Taliban executions of so-called traitors and spectacular attacks
against coalition forces.
Night letters
The Taliban method for night letters usually entails a warning delivered under a gate or nailed to a door in the dead of night.
During the run-up to the Afghan parliamentary elections in September
2010, the Taliban intimidated villagers in certain areas from voting.
People in the villages would not vote because the Taliban left letters
at night warning they will cut off the finger of anyone if they find it
marked with the indelible ink used to prevent multiple voting.
Magazines
The
Taliban have several Pashto, Urdu and Arabic magazines openly published
and distributed in Peshawar and the adjacent areas. These colorful
magazines are often printed on expensive foreign paper and distributed
free. They are published by different groups within the Taliban and are
full of extremist propaganda, distorted facts, photos of victims,
lengthy interviews with insurgent commanders, and articles on different
political and religious topics. These magazines publish only news
stories and newspaper articles that back their own claims.
The latest sad news is that the Christian Crusaders (Americans) have burned a copy of the Holy Quran in Wardak province and have thus shown their enmity with Islam and the Muslims... The saddest aspect of this incident is that the American invaders have committed this heinous crime in a province (Wardak) that has been known for long as home to mujahedeen (the holy warriors). The people of this province have taken active part in past and current jihadi movements. The people of this province have always defended their country bravely and heroically. The people of this province had played a historical role in the war against British occupiers...
The quote above comes from an article published in the latest issue
of Shahamat (The Bravery), a Taliban propaganda magazine in Pashto. The
article is an example of how the Taliban's propaganda tactics exploit a
particular incident or issue by elevating it with seemingly related
background information to provoke the local people to stand up against
occupation.
Counter-propaganda
To counter the Taliban advances in the propaganda war, the Pentagon has reportedly launched a broad "psychological operations" campaign in Afghanistan to take down insurgent-run web sites and to jam radio stations. The Afghan government,
for its part, has opened a new $1.2 million media center with
international support. Staffed by a team of Western-trained spin
doctors, the facility includes a high-tech media monitoring wing and an
outreach department tasked with building better working relations with
journalists.
According to a U.S. intelligence official, who agreed to be
quoted on the condition of anonymity, said he believes the Taliban's
reference to women's rights issues in their current propaganda campaign
was an attempt to mitigate the bad publicity from a recent TIME
cover story containing a haunting photo and an article featuring a
woman whose face was reportedly mauled by Taliban members. "That really
stuck it to them," he said. "Now they're softening their tone regarding
women."
