Taliban and Nato-led forces engage in war of words on Twitter

Taliban spokesman and Isaf press office have spat online as insurgents attack Kabul’s diplomatic and military enclave As the 20-hour assault by Taliban insurgents on Kabul’s diplomatic and military enclave drew to a close on Wednesday, insurgents and coalition forces decided to prolong the battle the modern way: on Twitter. If the continued insurgency in Afghanistan represents a failure of dialogue, the spat between the Taliban and the press office of the international security assistance force (Isaf) on Wednesday proved that they are ready to exchange words directly, even if their comments offered little hope of peace being forged anytime soon. The argument began when @ISAFmedia , which generally provides dry updates in military speak of the security situation in Afghanistan, took exception to comments from a Taliban spokesman, tweeting : “Re: Taliban spox on #Kabul attack: the outcome is inevitable. Question is how much longer will terrorist put innocent Afghans in harm’s way?” The Taliban – who, when in power, eschewed most modern technology, including television and music players – decided to point the finger of blame back at the international forces. Showing an affinity with textspeak, Taliban tweeter Abdulqahar Balk (@ABalkhi) wrote : “@ISAFmedia i dnt knw.u hve bn pttng thm n ‘harm’s way’ fr da pst 10 yrs.Razd whole vllgs n mrkts.n stil hv da nrve to tlk bout ‘harm’s way’” @ISAFmedia was moved to respond by providing statistical backing for its case : “Really, @abalkhi? Unama reported 80% of civilians causalities are caused by insurgent (your) activities http://goo.gl/FylwU” But @ABalkhi questioned the value of the quoted statistics, pointing out, in somewhat sarcastic tones , that the Isaf, an organisation established by the UN security council, was using figures from another UN body (the UN assistance mission in Afghanistan) to try to win the argument: “@ISAFmedia Unama is an entity of whom? mine or yours?” That brought to an end the direct exchanges, although @ABalkhi continued to try to score points, registering a “lol” at a CNN article titled ” Pentagon: Afghan insurgency ‘less effective’ this year “. Taliban Afghanistan Nato Twitter Internet Haroon Siddique guardian.co.uk

Posted by on September 14, 2011. Filed under News, Politics, World News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.