GOLESTAN: "You're listening to W.IED 102.5 FM 'the bomb'," joked Staff Sergeant Todd Bowers as he slotted another cassette of religious chants into his portable radio station.
While most of the battles fought by US Marines in restive Farah province are against improvised explosive devices (IEDs) and guns, Bowers, 30, is fighting a war of words to win the hearts and minds of people in rural western Afghanistan.
The radio station - a portable deck and 45-foot antennae at the military base in Golestan - began as a chance to give local villagers a taste of the music they were banned from hearing under the hardline Taliban rule.
Continued story at Channel News Asia
http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/afp_asiapacific/view/1009564/1/.html
(Alokesh Gupta, India)
Taliban winning the new media war 2.0 ?
The skilful use of old and new media technologies by terrorist organisations threaten to undermine the efforts of Coalition armed forces in countries such as Afghanistan and Pakistan, according to an Australian National University (ANU) researcher.
Speaking to Computerworld ahead of the War 2.0: Political Violence and New Media conference being held at the ANU, Prakash Mirchandai, a visiting fellow at the ANU Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, said terrorist organisations such as Al Qaeda had successfully harnessed technologies such as video and mobile phones to bypass Coalition messages conveyed by mainstream media.
“If you look at where the Taliban is getting its message across to the non-committed Afghanis it is through video,” he said. “They’re shooting Jihadist videos which are very sophistically edited and put on DVDs and the Internet.”
Full story at Compuetworld
http://www.computerworld.com.au/article/321114/taliban_winning_new_media_war_2_0
(R Netherlands Media Network weblog)