In Perspective: Taliban, tech and the fight for Afghanistan’s future
The Taliban now run websites with political cartoons, host podcast-like internet radio channels, and cultivate a network of WhatsApp groups that are hard to detect. Publicly, its representatives on Twitter take care to steer clear of the company’s rules against hate content
When the United States (US) and its allies launched the war in Afghanistan in 2001, internet was banned in the country. Facebook, Twitter, YouTube did not exist.
Taliban fighters patrol Kabul, Afghanistan on August 19. The Taliban celebrated Afghanistan's Independence Day by declaring they beat the United States. (AP)
Soon after US President George W Bush announced Operation Enduring Freedom with the news of the first airstrikes in Afghanistan on October 7 that year, the Taliban began their information operation via radio. The message stressed on the “invasion of the outsiders” and sought to rally unity in a country controlled by various tribes in different regions. The Western campaign fought back with a message not entirely different — the Taliban were collaborators of Osama Bin Laden, an Arab, and his group of foreign fighters.
As the Western militaries pulled out in the last few months, the Taliban swept back across the country. Their resurgence, shocking as it was to strategists who failed to foresee its speed and scale, is backed by a robust propaganda machinery.
The Taliban now run websites with political cartoons, host podcast-like internet radio channels, and cultivate a network of WhatsApp groups that are hard to detect. Publicly, its representatives on Twitter take care to steer clear of the company’s rules against hate content to quietly gather more followers.
To borrow a now ubiquitous business process jargon, Taliban’s digital transformation holds the key to understanding how it gained strength while out of power and what it could indicate about the future that awaits Afghanistan.
The early days of the narrative war
To understand the evolution of the information warfare in Afghanistan, it is important to look at the information itself – or at least the core of it. In 2001, the Taliban painted the US and its allies as foreign invaders.
The focus of the western narrative was not far removed: According to a Brookings research paper from 2001, the US and its allies too sought to leverage sentiments of nationalism. They recast the Taliban as a collaborator of Osama Bin Laden, an Arab whose group of foreign fighters were bringing misery to the country, laying the foundation for support for a civilian government.
Taliban’s embracing of tech
In his 2018 book, Taliban Narratives, conflict researcher Thomas H Johnson unpacks the message and the method that lay at the heart of the Taliban’s information operation. In it, he charts the evolution from night letters (these would be delivered to villages overnight to be read out at the town square), to DVDs. As the internet revolution took place, the Taliban launched their website, Alemarah in 2005.
“Wars today cannot be won without media. Media aims at the heart rather than the body, [and] if the heart is defeated, the battle is won.” In December 2010, Alemarah’s editor Abdul Satar Maiwandi gave this quote as part of an interview, Johnson writes, noting it as the first time the Taliban revealed the extent of their information operations. For a group that had banned the internet when it controlled Afghanistan, it now set out to leverage email, texting, tweets, blogs, YouTube, and Facebook, Maiwandi indicated.
How has this played out?
Johnson writes digital technologies have improved the speed of Taliban’s messaging. Among the examples he cites are posts on news, battle reports, interviews, commentaries, and even video clips of rocket attacks on Western forces being hosted on the websites. One of the websites also had a significant portion of warrior poetry. This, Johnson says, is evidence that the Taliban and other militants were utilising and exploiting cultural norms.
But cultural norms have been only one part of the sentiments being exploited. The other is fear.
Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) researchers Atlantic Council’s DFR Labs found evidence in 2019 of a Taliban influence operation on Twitter amplifying the group’s voter intimidation tactics. At least 67 Taliban-associated accounts pushed hashtags that highlighted Taliban’s attacks, electoral disruptions and murders, the assessment found. The campaign, the researchers added, also served to further questions on the civilian government’s legitimacy.
Taliban is in power. Why does it need these narratives now?
Two facets of Taliban’s recent information strategies provide some clues.
The first of this is a more recent influence operation on Twitter that unfolded as the insurgents rapidly captured cities. Taliban’s spokesperson Zabiullah Mujahid tweeted out these advances, portraying them as the group’s strategic superiority. Victories were broadcast widely, helping propagate a sense of invincibility that may or may not have played a role when Afghan forces abandoned their posts areas that fell later. The messages were amplified by bot-like behaviour and copy-paste posts. This campaign peaked on August 15, when Taliban entered Kabul.
The second relates to what happened after Kabul fell. The messages and posts attempted to paint a more positive picture. They attempted to show that the group enforced rule of law, and carried messages of reassurances for women and ethnic minorities.
These suggest that similar to the ways in which other authoritarian or oppressive regimes have used information operations, the Taliban recognise the control of the message on social media is crucial for its overall control of the narrative.
How does this pose a threat?
Oppressive regimes have typically attempted to reduce the amount of opportunity social media gives to the challengers of the status quo while leveraging it to further their control. Iran and North Korea ban social media entirely, while China allows only those that it has complete control over. In places without a strict ban or with less sophisticated network controls, social media has been leveraged for active harm and disinformation – such as its use in Myanmar to further anti-Rohingya sentiment.
At present, Afghanistan does not have the capacity – human or technical – to impose the level of strict network filtering to create a China-like digital walled garden.
It is an unknown whether Taliban will plunge the country into a digital blackout, although the likelihood is low due to the potential disruption in business, and the backlash it may stoke.
For now, the biggest threats from Taliban’s embracing of technology stem from its ability to set narratives that could mask the reality of its rule.
Particularly at risk is also a generation of people who grew up on the internet, leaving behind digital footprints that Taliban is likely to find at odds with its strict interpretation of Islamic law. One instance that captured such fears last week was when Khalida Popal, the face of Afghan women’s football team, urged players to burn their jerseys and take down photos of matches.
In Perspective takes a deep dive into current issues, the visible and invisible factors at play, and their implications for our future. The column is out every Monday.
Binayak reports on information security, privacy and scientific research in health and environment with explanatory pieces. He also edits the news sections of the newspaper.
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