SPY EYES

In an age of satellite technology and the Internet, insurgent media operations have reached a level of technical maturity that often outpaces their adversaries.

Barely do insurgent attacks occur and the national and international media are alerted to the destruction and loss of life, video footage and photographs supplied, and statements and press releases issued via the internet.

These are not the fast manoeuvrings of governments or NATO forces to broadcast their version of events and their position. They are rather the media outreach of the Taliban and other insurgent groups in Afghanistan and Pakistan, which have proved themselves highly adept at communicating in the digital age.

“As the mujahedin of the Islamic Emirates of Afghanistan get steadily stronger they also try to equip themselves with new technologies,” said Afghan Taliban spokesman for the eastern region, Zabihullah Mujahid.

“During our operations we have a cameraman who shoots videos and takes pictures from the battlefield. Our mujahedin then use Facebook and YouTube to get our message out to the entire world,” added the spokesman, commenting by telephone from an undisclosed location.

Getting with the times

Ironically, the Taliban have had to adopt technologies they banned during their 1996-2001 rule of Afghanistan: computers, televisions, films and the Internet. But they also like to point out that they are not stuck in the ancient past and can also move with the times.

“The Taliban are educated and use modern technology in a good manner,” said Ehsanullah Ehsan, who until June was the spokesman of Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), the movement’s independently evolved Pakistani incarnation.

Militant websites spring up and get quickly disabled, but the Taliban have maintained a steady flow of information on their primary website. News is published daily in five different languages: Pashtu, Dari, Arabic, English and Urdu. And they bring the news to the media, rather than wait for the media to find it.

“In emergency situations and circumstances, we inform reporters via text messages,” said Qari Yousuf, Taliban spokesperson for the southern provinces. “On a daily basis, if it is not emergency circumstances, we communicate with reporters through email.”

“If an incident happens somewhere in the country, the Taliban inform us about it via text message,” confirms Wahid, a Kandahar-based newspaper reporter. “Sometimes we get the information from Taliban quicker than we get it from the Afghan government.”

“Like the US forces and the Afghan government, the Taliban and al-Qaeda also use propaganda,” says Esmatullah, a radio reporter in Kandahar. “Taliban insurgents use the internet, email, Facebook and Twitter.”

Skeptical reception

But since claims have been inflated by all sides, reports must generally be cross-referenced to construct a more accurate version of events. This is also a propaganda war, after all.

As the fighting in Afghanistan intensified from 2006, western reporters especially began to question claims of battlefield success.

For example, US media operations based out of Bagram Airfield ran daily bulletins about scores of insurgents killed in single engagements, with no supporting photographic evidence. Reporters stopped reporting the numbers and Bagram stopped issuing them, although this was also thought to be because the practice ran against counter-insurgency tactics.

Conversely, insurgent media operations have often posted far-fetched claims of numerous enemy soldiers and “tanks” being destroyed in single skirmishes.

No ordinary job

But there is no salary scale or pension plan doing insurgent PR: “Our press and media colleagues are not paid for their work,” said the spokesman Mujahid. “Like other mujahedin, they volunteer and perform their duties as jihad.”

As for the apparent contradiction of underground organizations being so PR active, they take their own security precautions. Thought to be based in Pakistan’s northwestern tribal belt or Baluchistan, Afghan Taliban spokesmen communicate with media from undisclosed locations. There is also speculation that the main names cited are aliases used by several people.

Similar security methods are employed by the Pakistani Taliban, which was only formally founded in 2007. But a larger population, higher literacy rate and depth of internet penetration in Pakistan also increases the range of its propaganda tsars.

“The social media has made our work easier, we can easily share our message with the people.” Ehsanullah Ehsan, former Pakistani Taliban spokesman

The TTP also contact prominent journalists with latest news events and claims of responsibility, just as they do with denials and disclaimers after incidents, he said:

“Sometimes blasts or other incidents are caused by other people, but people blame the Taliban. We then share our message through Facebook and Twitter and inform people that we had no connection with the incident.”

Radio outreach was also a key medium for militants in Pakistan in recent years, especially in the tribal belt and the Swat district, which emerged as an insurgent stronghold until it was cleared by the Pakistani military in 2009. Almost five dozen FM stations were set up in these areas to propagate the militant message.

“Our current [TTP] chief Mullah Fazlullah used to use FM radio to make people aware of the Taliban’s activities and preach Islamic law and Islamic rule,” says Ehsan, referring to the radical cleric from Swat who was in October named as the Pakistani Taliban’s new leader, and is now thought to be based in Afghanistan’s Kunar Province.

Revival of war chants

In Afghanistan, the public outreach work takes two distinct forms, said interviewees. One group of workers is responsible for direct media communications. The other promotes the Taliban’s agenda by defaming the Afghan government as a puppet entity that violates Islamic values.

As well as embracing social networks, insurgent groups have combined old methods with technology, notably the use of taranas, rhythmic chants without music, to stir a chord with youths especially.

Poetic and patriotic, the taranas are circulated via mobile phones, often with graphic video clips of attacks on foreign or government forces. New ones may emulate popular songs, so the association is instant and the original is used to promote a militant message.

“The Taliban’s taranas can easily be spread,” said Mohammad Khan, a resident of Kandahar city. “Many people now have smart phones equipped with cameras and memory cards, and can easily access these chants and share them with their friends via Bluetooth.”

Nasim, a 50-year old farmer from Kandahar’s Arghistan District, says local youths who went to Quetta to pursue religious studies recently returned to his village with Taliban recordings on their phones.

“They use the village mosque as a platform to promote and share their taranas and videos with other youths, who listen and watch very enthusiastically,” Nasim said. “Many such youths have joined the insurgents and now fight the Afghan government. I know four people who have taken up weapons and joined the Taliban.”

The taranas and videos can also be found in computer, mobile phone and DVD stores in Kandahar City, despite attempts to stop the sale of recordings “that promote violence and intimidate people,” said Dawa Khan Minapal, the head of Kandahar’s Information and Culture Directorate.

“By using these propaganda tools the Taliban have been able to recruit youths in the fight against the Afghan government and its international allies,” he conceded.

Watch your step

But while insurgent groups are quick to provide material, their broad access to the media is a worry to many journalists. Monitoring the main TV and radio stations, websites and newspapers, retribution can meted for reporting found to be unfavourable.

One presenter of a private TV channel in Peshawar recalled a discussion on air about the insurgency with a prominent Pakistani news anchor.

“During the break we received a threatening phone call from the Taliban,” he said. “When I denied certain allegations [made during the call], they even played back a recording of the programme.”

“To write anything against [the Taliban] is asking for trouble and you can lose your life,” said another journalist originally from North Waziristan, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Thirty-nine Pakistani journalists have been killed in the course of their work in the past decade, some of them after they were told explicitly by insurgents that they would be targetted if they continued reporting.

However, topping it all come a recent letter from outlawed Tehrik Taliban Pakistan (TTP) threatening media houses and media personnel to stop showing insurgents in bad light.

The threatening letter which the TTP termed as fatwa or religious edict termed the journalists as hypocrites and suggested punishments like exile and murder as punishment for their propaganda against insurgents.

In December 2013, the TTP issued a statement they termed a fatwa, or religious edict, saying journalists who persistently cast the insurgent cause in a bad light would be liable for exile or capital punishment. The statement followed a small arms and explosives attack on the Karachi offices of Pakistan’s Express Media Group. The TTP later claimed responsibility and indicated there would be further attacks on media houses.

 By Nang Durrani and L. Yousafzai
AFGHANISTAN TODAY