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This little cyber-presenter, Dickie, seems pretty cute. Listen carefully to what he has to tell you however. He's repeating - word for word - press releases from the Afghan Taliban. Read more...
This little cyber-presenter, Dickie, seems pretty cute. Listen carefully to what he has to tell you, however. He's repeating - word for word - press releases from the Afghan Taliban.
FRANCE 24 contacted 'resistz2exist'; we'll update the post if they respond.
'Taliban propaganda is far more efficient than that of the coalition forces'
Nick Fielding, 54, is a freelance journalist. He travels to Afghanistan and Pakistan regularly, and his written several books on terrorism. He writes the blog "Circling the Lion's Den".
The videos were posted on YouTube by a certain ‘resistz2exist'. No idea where this person is based [on their YouTube channel, they claim to be in South Africa], but one thing's for sure: "Dickie" is faithfully repeating statistics from the Afghan Taliban. I know, because I survey their sites, particularly TheUnjustMedia, where the Taliban publishes its press releases. Every day they give the number of "invader" soldiers killed and tanks destroyed.
I've explained in one of my blog posts just how far-fetched these statistics are. They say, for example, to have killed 533 "invader" soldiers and destroyed 338 armoured vehicles in April. The coalition forces, on the other hand, give a death count of only 13 in the same period. The Taliban sometimes say they kill ten British soldiers a day. It would be impossible for the British Army to hide such a number!
‘resistz2exist' must have had to create this TV programme with the help of software available online. My guess is that the voice is synthesized. They seem to be updating regularly - the first video was posted on May 21st, the second on the 26th, and the third on the 30th.
I posted Dickie's video on my blog to show just how sophisticated the Taliban propaganda is [we don't know if ‘resistsz2exist' is directly linked to the Afghan Taliban. We've contacted their spokesperson for verification]. Don't let anyone tell you that the Taliban are a bunch of unsophisticated tribals living in caves. Personally, I think that Taliban propaganda is far more efficient than that of the coalition forces. When the Afghan authorities accused NATO of having killed civilians in a bombing [in April], NATO at first denied it, which was a grave mistake. We didn't hear whether the information the Taliban had given was correct; but NATO lost a huge amount of credibility by concealing information."