Taliban Propaganda: Winning the War of Words?
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TALIBAN PROPAGANDA: WINNING THE WAR OF WORDS? Asia Report N°158 – 24 July 2008 TABLE OF CONTENTS EXECUTIVE SUMMARY AND RECOMMENDATIONS................................................. i I. INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................. 1 II. BACKDROP ...................................................................................................................... 3 A. RISE OF THE TALIBAN MOVEMENT .............................................................................................3 B. MEDIA UNDER THE TALIBAN.......................................................................................................4 III. MEDIA AND TALIBAN RESURGENCE...................................................................... 7 A. MEDIA ENVIRONMENT................................................................................................................8 B. TALIBAN SPOKESMEN .................................................................................................................9 C. SPREADING THE MESSAGE ........................................................................................................12 1. Night letters (Shabnamah)..................................................................................................12 2. Publications ........................................................................................................................13 3. DVDs..................................................................................................................................14 4. Online .................................................................................................................................15 5. Audio/poetry.......................................................................................................................15 IV. WHAT THEY SAY ......................................................................................................... 17 A. FOREIGN PRESENCE ..................................................................................................................18 1. Guantanamo Bay and arbitrary detentions .........................................................................18 2. Civilian casualties...............................................................................................................19 3. Xenophobic appeals............................................................................................................20 B. LEGITIMACY AND POWER .........................................................................................................22 1. Corrupt government............................................................................................................22 2. Projecting power.................................................................................................................22 3. Justifications for jihad and suicide attacks .........................................................................23 V. WHAT THEY DO NOT SAY ........................................................................................ 25 A. TRIBALISM................................................................................................................................25 B. WIDER WORLD .........................................................................................................................26 C. GOVERNANCE ...........................................................................................................................27 VI. COHESION OR COMPETITION? .............................................................................. 29 A. ALLIED AND COMPETING VOICES .............................................................................................29 B. WHAT DOES IT WANT?.............................................................................................................32 VII. CONCLUSION ............................................................................................................... 33 APPENDICES A. MAP OF AFGHANISTAN ....................................................................................................................35 B. ABOUT THE INTERNATIONAL CRISIS GROUP ....................................................................................36 C. CRISIS GROUP REPORTS AND BRIEFINGS ON ASIA............................................................................37 D. CRISIS GROUP BOARD OF TRUSTEES................................................................................................40 Asia Report N°158 24 July 2008 TALIBAN PROPAGANDA: WINNING THE WAR OF WORDS? EXECUTIVE SUMMARY AND RECOMMENDATIONS The Taliban has created a sophisticated communica- a difficult negotiating partner because it lacks a tions apparatus that projects an increasingly confident coherent agenda, includes allies with divergent movement. Using the full range of media, it is suc- agendas and has a leadership that refuses to talk cessfully tapping into strains of Afghan nationalism before the withdrawal of foreign forces and with- and exploiting policy failures by the Kabul govern- out the imposition of Sharia (Islamic law). ment and its international backers. The result is weak- ening public support for nation-building, even though Out of power and lacking control over territory, the few actively support the Taliban. The Karzai govern- Taliban has proved adept at projecting itself as ment and its allies must make greater efforts, through stronger than it is in terms of numbers and resources. word and deed, to address sources of alienation ex- Despite the increasing sophistication of some of its ploited in Taliban propaganda, particularly by ending propaganda, however, it still puts out contradictory arbitrary detentions and curtailing civilian casualties messages that indicate internal rifts and the diffuse from aerial bombing. nature of the insurgency. These reveal a cross-border leadership and support apparatus striving to present a Analysing the Taliban’s public statements has limits, unified front and assert control even as various groups since the insurgent group seeks to underscore suc- maintain their own communications networks. Main- cesses – or imagined successes – and present itself as taining relations with transnational jihadist networks, having the purest of aims, while disguising weak- which have a more global agenda, is a potential prob- nesses and underplaying its brutality. However, the lem for the Taliban, which has always been a largely method still offers a window into what the movement nationalistic movement. considers effective in terms of recruitment and bol- stering its legitimacy among both supporters and po- A website in the name of the former regime – the Islamic tential sympathisers. Emirate of Afghanistan – is used as an international distribution centre for leadership statements and inflated The movement reveals itself in its communications as: tales of battlefield exploits. While fairly rudimentary, this is not a small effort; updates appear several times the product of the anti-Soviet jihad and the civil war a day in five languages. Magazines put out by the that followed but not representative of indigenous movement or its supporters provide a further source strands of religious thought or traditional pre- of information on leadership structures and issues conflict power structures; considered to be of importance. But for the largely rural and illiterate population, great efforts are also a largely ethno-nationalist phenomenon, without put into conveying preaching and battle reports via popular grassroots appeal beyond its core of support DVDs, audio cassettes, shabnamah (night letters – in sections of the Pashtun community; pamphlets or leaflets usually containing threats) and traditional nationalist songs and poems. The Taliban still reliant on sanctuaries in Pakistan, even though local support has grown; also increasingly uses mobile phones to spread its message. linked with transnational extremist groups for mostly tactical rather than strategic reasons but The vast majority of the material is in Pashtu, and a divided over these links internally; shortage of language skills in the international commu- nity means much of this either passes unnoticed or is seeking to exploit local tribal disputes for recruit- misunderstood. English-language statements are rela- ment and mainly appealing to the disgruntled and tively crude, but the Taliban is able to put out its story disenfranchised in specific locations, but lacking a rapidly. More effort is devoted to Arabic language wider tribal agenda; and output, aimed at soliciting the support of transnational Taliban Propaganda: Winning the War of Words? Crisis Group Asia Report N°158, 24 July 2008 Page ii networks and funders. The overriding strategic narra- (b) speaking out strongly and consistently about tive is a quest for legitimacy and the projection of Taliban killings and attacks, while holding the strength. Use of tactics such as suicide bombings – international community and Afghan national previously unknown in Afghanistan – and roadside security agencies proportionately accountable bombs, as well as such audacious actions in 2008 as a for their actions; prison break in Kandahar city, an attack on a military (c) refraining from threatening the media for re- parade attended by President Hamid Karzai and an porting and ensuring that legal definitions of assault on a five-star hotel