The Taliban is Tweeting

If this Guardian article is to be believed, the screengrab you're looking at is that of an "official" Twitter feed for the Taliban.

I wonder if they'll be able to get that little blue "Verified" account badge.

Their Twitter feed, @alemarahweb, pumps out several messages each day, keeping 224 followers up to date with often highly exaggerated reports of strikes against the "infidel forces" and the "Karzai puppet regime". Most messages by the increasingly media-savvy movement are in Pashtu, with links to news stories on the elaborate and multilingual website of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, as the Taliban's shadow government likes to style itself.

"Most," that is. The rest of the feed is retweets of Osama in Hell, inspirational quotes from Justin Bieber, and descriptions of delicious bygone sandwiches.

• [Anonymous]

  Did the Taliban just jump the shark?

• [zyodei]

  If this is authentic, this can only be a good thing.

  It is always good when we realize that the ‘enemy’ are humans like us, rather than a faceless evil.

  It has always been a tactic of groups that wanted more war to dehumanize the opponents to the population.

  It’s worth noting: as much as I find the ideas of the Taliban abhorrent, they are not inherently a terrorist group; they are a nationalist group that has a specific vision for how they want life in their country.

  Now, this vision is horrible, and if I were Afghani I would oppose them every step of the way. But they are not a terrorist group that has targeted US interests anywhere outside of Afghanistan.

  It’s even worth mentioning that the Taliban offered to hand over Bin Laden, if only the US would provide the minor detail of actual evidence that he was involved in 9/11. Our response? ‘Fuck evidence, bombs away!’

  The Internet is making the world smaller, bit by bit, day by day. Small enough that we can actually see each other for what we all are – human beings with human motives. And I say, three cheers for that!

  • [pyromosh]

    I get your point, but your it falls apart completely when you actually read what they tweet.

    It’s not “humanizing”. While I can’t find a Pashto to English translator that works on the Pashto tweets (it’s likely full of too much Pashto internet shorthand to work), all the English tweets are about killing. There’s nothing humanizing about this account. It’s very purpose specific.

  • [travtastic]

    Of course they’re terrorists. They were terrorists before we invaded the country, and they’ll be terrorists after we leave. The only difference right now is that American troops are the (primary) target, instead of women, LGBT Afghans, and Buddhist statues.

  • [Irene Delse]

    It’s even worth mentioning that the Taliban offered to hand over Bin Laden, if only the US would provide the minor detail of actual evidence that he was involved in 9/11. Our response? ‘Fuck evidence, bombs away!’

    Erm… Aren’t you confusing Afghanistan with Iraq, maybe? The links of the 9/11 perpetrators to Al-Qaida were unearthed pretty quickly. In that light, the Taliban “offer” must have sounded more than a little disingenuous, obviously.

• [Anonymous]

  I thought the Taliban rejected and forbade the use of technology? Didn’t they like cut peoples hands off if they were caught with a radio or somesuch when they were in control? Seems awful hypocritical.

  • [Anonymous]

    #7

    I think you’re confusing when Tibet was ruled by Dalai Lamas with Taliban controlled Afganisthan. The Dalai Lamas of Tibet is the only regime I know of that have punished possession of radios and other modern technology with cutting of hands, at least during peacetime. The only other regime with a generic technology ban in modern time (that I know of) is Bhutan, they had a ban on electronic equipment until the 1990′s, but possession was not punishable by mutilation (the favourite punishment for most crimes in pre-occupied Tibet). During wartime is another matter, e.g. US troops sometimes uphold bans of radio listening devices in hostile areas they control, but that is a practice that have been shared by many occupation forces, Nazi Germany only allowed special made radios that could be used only to listen to regional broadcasts within the areas they controlled.

• [Rob Gehrke]

  Oh good, now this can all be settled by a good Twitter fight and the troops can be sent home.
  #NewMediaSavesTheDay

• [Michael Smith]

  The best way for the Taliban to prove that this is their twitter feed would be for them to blow something up and tweet about it immediately before the event. Otherwise it should be considered unauthenticated.

• [trent1492]

  It’s even worth mentioning that the Taliban offered to hand over Bin Laden, if only the US would provide the minor detail of actual evidence that he was involved in 9/11

  You know what is even more interesting? The fact that evidence was provided and anyway the Taliban had no intention of turning him when they lied and said he had fled the country. A bold faced lie in light of latter developments of what happened at Tora Bora.