image source, Reuters
Taliban forces on patrol near Kabul airport in late August 2021.
In early May, when US and NATO forces began to withdraw their last troops from Afghanistan, the Taliban immediately intensified their military attacks on local government forces.
But they also did something rare during the conflict in Afghanistan: The Taliban launched a sweeping social media campaign.
A network of social media accounts highlights the failures of the regime in Kabul and praises the Taliban’s achievements.
Tweets at the time promoted recent Taliban victories – sometimes too early to broadcast – while including hashtags like #kabulregimecrimes (attached to tweets accusing the Afghan government of war crimes); #West_With_Taliban (efforts to unleash community support at the grassroots level) and #Victory_from_God_Opened: Opportunity for victory (God’s help and victory is at hand).
These first ticks are trending, at least in Afghanistan.
In response, Amrullah Saleh, then Afghan Vice President, warned the army and the public not to indulge in what he called “false claims of Taliban victory on social media”.
He also asked the public not to publish details of government military operations that could endanger security.
These developments show that the Taliban has changed its stance from its rejection of information technology and modern media, to building elements of social media to amplify their message.
Forming a social media team
When the Taliban first came to power in Afghanistan in 1996, they blocked the internet and confiscated or destroyed televisions, cameras, and video equipment.
But in 2005, the official website of the Islamic Emirate of the Taliban, “Emirates”, was launched, and now its content is published in five languages - English, Arabic, Basto, Dari and Urdu.
image source, AFP via GETTY IMAGES
The audio, visual and written content is under the supervision of the Cultural Committee of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA), led by their spokesperson, Zabihullah Mujahid.
Mujahid’s first tweet was immediately blocked by Twitter. However, his new account, active since 2017, has more than 317,000 followers.
Under Mujahid’s supervision there is a team of volunteers dedicated to promoting Taliban ideology online.
The team leader, who is also the IEA’s director of social media, is Qari Saeed Khosti.
Khosti told the BBC his team has its own groups that focus on Twitter – working on the Taliban hashtag to trend – and post messages via WhatsApp and Facebook.
“Our enemies have TV and radio accounts and verified accounts on social media, while we don’t. But we are still fighting through Twitter and Facebook and we have been able to defeat them,” Khosti said.
His job, he said, was to bring those who joined the Taliban because of their ideology “to social media platforms so they can amplify our message.”
Focus more on Twitter
There are about 8.6 million internet users in Afghanistan and the lack of affordable network and data services remains a major obstacle.
Khosti said the watchdog’s social media team has motivated 1,000 Afghanis (about 164,000 rupees) a month to package data for team members “to fight in the online battlefield.”
He claims that the watchdog “has four studios complete with multimedia tools that are used to improve audio, video and digital imaging”.
image source, AFP via GETTY IMAGES
A Taliban fighter searches for a mobile phone signal at a hospital in Andar district, Ghazni province, Afghanistan, June 3, 2021.
The result is high-quality propaganda videos glorifying Taliban fighters and their battles against foreign and government forces, which are widely shared on their YouTube account and Emirates website.
The group posts content for free on Twitter and YouTube, but Facebook has described the Taliban as a “dangerous organization” and regularly removes accounts and pages associated with the group.
Facebook said it will continue to block Taliban content on its platform.
Khosti told the BBC that it was difficult for the Taliban to get their posts on Facebook, so they focused on Twitter.
In fact, the US State Department has designated the Haqqani Network as an international terrorist group. But their leader, Anas Haqqani, and many of its members have Twitter accounts, each with thousands of followers.
A member of the Taliban team said on social media, on condition of anonymity, to the BBC that they decided to use Twitter to publish an opinion piece from The New York Times written by Sirajuddin Haqqani, the Taliban’s deputy leader, in February 2020.
In connection with the article, a number of active accounts have been created on Twitter.
“Most Afghans do not understand English, but the leadership of the Kabul regime is actively communicating in English on Twitter – because their audience is not Afghan but from the international community,” he said.
“The Taliban want to fight their propaganda and that is why we are also focusing on Twitter.”
Khosti also revealed that the accounts of some of its members already have tens of thousands of followers. All members were instructed “not to comment on foreign policy issues of neighboring countries that could interfere in our relations with them.”
In the past, the Taliban were known to be very secretive about the identity of their leaders and fighters.
No wonder the image of Taliban founder Mullah Omar is so rare.
Now, in an effort to gain international legitimacy, their leaders not only appear in front of the media, but are also promoted on social media.
image source, AFP via GETTY IMAGES
Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid (center, holding paper) with other commanders while speaking to the media at Kabul airport on August 31, 2021.
After not appearing in public, Zabihullah Mujahid appeared as a Taliban spokesman at a press conference after Kabul fell to them. Not only that, the Taliban’s Twitter accounts have also changed the appearance of their profile with a Mujahid image.
In contrast, many Afghans who have worked with international forces, foreign organizations and the media, and who are critical of the Taliban on social media have now frozen their accounts, fearing that they will become targets.
Human rights activists from Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch said they received reports that the Taliban were pursuing and killing people in retaliation.
Meanwhile, Facebook has rolled out a “one-click” feature for citizens of Afghanistan to quickly lock their accounts, preventing anyone not on their friends list from searching for more detailed information about the account holder.
The platform also announced that it will temporarily remove the feature that can view and search “friends” lists for accounts in Afghanistan.
The question is whether the Taliban have changed and abandoned the group’s inherent brutality.
Many in Afghanistan and around the world still do not believe in the group’s promise of change.
However, they seem to have realized that some elements of technology, which they once avoided, can now aid them in their quest to form an opinion on the international stage.
“Social media is a powerful tool for changing public perceptions,” a member of the Taliban team said on social media.
“We want to change the Taliban’s outlook,” he said.