Pentagon Targets Taliban Radio

Extremist websites, radio stations to be jammed as part of new strategy
By Rob Quinn,  Newser Staff
Posted Apr 18, 2009 6:00 AM CDT
Pentagon Targets Taliban Radio
Psychological operations are playing a bigger role in the Obama administration's new Afghanistan policy.   (Getty Images)

Forcing Radio Taliban off the air is a key part of the Pentagon's new Afghanistan strategy, the Wall Street Journal reports. Military communications experts are working to jam the websites and unlicensed radio stations extremists in Afghanistan in Pakistan use to proclaim their power, intimidate residents, plan attacks, and broadcast lists of officials marked for death—hundreds of whom have later been killed.

Rogue FM stations in Pakistan's border area make it possible for militants to go "around every night broadcasting the names of people they're going to behead or they've beheaded," said the special US envoy to the region. The US push to take Taliban propaganda off the airwaves is being paired with a program to fund pro-government radio stations in rural Afghanistan.
(More Taliban stories.)

Get the news faster.
Tap to install our app.
X
Install the Newser News app
in two easy steps:
1. Tap in your navigation bar.
2. Tap to Add to Home Screen.

X