Words Are a Key Weapon in the Taliban’s Arsenal

Taliban tales of successful strikes against U.S. warplanes escalated Saturday, as the Afghan regime claimed it had gunned down a helicopter and a jet aircraft, “maybe a B-52 carpet bomber.”

In recent days, the reports from the Taliban--which are one of the few windows into the warfare in Afghanistan--have evolved into wild tales of downed aircraft, dead Americans and an assassinated leader. The increasingly fantastic accounts, consistently denied by the Pentagon, stand in sharp contrast to the relatively measured reports the Taliban issued in the early days of the 28-day-old bombing campaign.

“Their lies are getting bigger and bigger,” said a Western diplomat here in Pakistan’s capital. “If you add it up, it shows a sense of frustration that things are not going their way.”

Ahmed Rashid, a Pakistani journalist who wrote a book about the Taliban, isn’t so sure. He believes that the regime has taken to exaggeration with an eye toward boosting morale in its encampments. U.S. bombs have shattered radio stations throughout Afghanistan. But soldiers in the field--who traditionally regard their shortwave radios as second only to their guns--can still listen to Ambassador to Pakistan Abdul Salam Zaeef, whose speeches from Islamabad are broadcast on the BBC.

“The ambassador is the only national voice,” Rashid said. “He knows that what he says will be listened to by every Taliban fighter on the front.”

Zaeef, a formerly obscure diplomat who has become a sort of global spokesman for the Taliban, sat on a low sofa at his home here Saturday night, a translator at his side and journalists huddled before him.

Speaking slowly to the crowd, he told a story. It began Saturday morning, he said, when Taliban soldiers shot an invading helicopter from the skies. Then a warplane came looking for the wreckage, and the Taliban blasted it to the ground too.

“It is a very huge plane,” he said. “We don’t know the model or quality, but it is believed it may be a B-52.” Taliban soldiers were combing the snowy field for bodies, he said.

That night, Urdu-language newspapers hawked on the curbs of Islamabad splashed the story across their front pages as if it were indisputable fact: more than 100 captured Americans, an opposition leader hanged, a B-52 smashed in the snow.

But in European and U.S. wire reports, the Taliban’s boast barely rated a mention. Instead, the Western agencies carried the story of a helicopter downed by bad weather Friday and an unmanned aircraft that went missing in an unrelated crash the same day. Pentagon officials confirmed the loss of the two aircraft but said nobody was killed.

One war, two stories. In some respects, the struggle between information and propaganda has succeeded in further dividing an already fractured world, in slashing a rift between Muslim readers and their non-Muslim counterparts.

Urdu newspapers aren’t the only ones to dole out Taliban reports without a trace of skepticism. The Afghan regime’s version of events gets top billing--and straight-faced treatment--in news accounts throughout the Middle East and western Asia. And as the news gets bloodier, discontent is growing in the streets.

Demonstrators throughout the Muslim world have been shouting disapproval of the U.S.-led attacks on Afghanistan--and particularly of the deaths of children, hospital patients and the elderly, which are featured prominently in Taliban accounts.

The United States insists that Taliban death tolls are inflated. But not so long ago, nobody in the U.S. government seemed particularly bothered by those exaggerations. When the first bombs fell, U.S. officials shrugged off Taliban reports as lies. When questioned, they’d tell reporters there wasn’t enough time to respond to every statement issued by the regime.

The indifference is long gone. As the bombing increased this month--and the propaganda intensified--the United States and Britain showed a sudden eagerness to dispute Taliban reports. The two nations set up 24-hour public relations offices in London and Washington and are organizing a third center in Islamabad to respond to Taliban claims.

“The idea is to beat the time lag we’re suffering from,” said Mark Wentworth, spokesman for the U.S. Embassy here. “Because of the time difference between here and the [U.S.] East Coast, rumors can proliferate. That’s when headlines are written.”

In the midst of Saturday’s rhetorical warfare, Osama bin Laden chimed in with a videotaped statement. Clad in military camouflage, backed by an automatic weapon, he said the United Nations is guilty of crimes against Muslims. Afghans are not to blame for the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States, he said, and should not be punished with bombing.

“Today, without any evidence, the United Nations is peddling resolutions in support of America against the weak who just emerged from a massive war by the Soviet Union,” Bin Laden said.

Bin Laden also issued a letter urging Pakistani Muslims to defend Islam against what he described as a Christian crusade, according to Qatar’s Al Jazeera satellite television.

And, of course, both the letter and video were widely reported. No matter what tales the Taliban tell, journalists are loath to disregard the regime’s accounts. Information from the barren, bomb-scarred nation is scarce, and firsthand accounts of events in Taliban-controlled areas are all but unobtainable.

The Taliban has twice rounded up a small number of foreign journalists for brief treks to bombed-out buildings. But aside from these tours, the regime has granted few visas to reporters and has jailed those who sneaked over the border to view the warfare for themselves.

The strict laws and forbidding terrain allow the war in Afghanistan’s mountains and plains to unfold largely in private, a series of shadowy strikes amid much speculation. In other words, prime material for propaganda.

A case in point: In the western Pakistani city of Quetta, a media mystery is brewing over the whereabouts, well-being and doings of Hamid Karzai. A former diplomat who fled Afghanistan when the Taliban rose to power, Karzai slipped from Quetta back into his homeland in the midst of last month’s political chaos. There, he hid out in the mountains and set about recruiting followers for an anti-Taliban rebellion. Last week, Karzai fought a gun battle with Taliban soldiers in a province of central Afghanistan where his tribe is located.

Everybody agrees on those details. But what happened next depends on whom you ask--and what you read. Urdu-language newspapers trumpeted claims that Taliban fighters had captured the activist. Other papers ran an account of Karzai’s execution at the hands of Taliban assassins. Meanwhile, Karzai’s family and political allies told reporters that he escaped the skirmish, had telephoned and sounded fine.

“The Taliban has executed the opposition commander Hamid Karzai along with his 25 associates,” blared Saturday’s Daily Mashriq, an Urdu morning paper. Karzai was alive but had been captured and was headed for execution, reported the Daily Jang, Pakistan’s largest Urdu-language paper. “The Taliban arrested Afghan leader Hamid Karzai, who is pro-King Zaher Shah, with dozens of his associates,” the headline read.

The Baluchistan Times, an English-language daily in Quetta, called Karzai’s arrest a “serious blow” to U.S. efforts to overthrow the Taliban.

The accounts were scattered, contradictory: Taliban spokesmen claimed their forces had seized 600 Kalashnikov rifles and ammunition when they captured Karzai. The weapons had been dropped from the sky by Karzai’s American allies, the Taliban said.

Taliban sources reported that American helicopters had dropped Karzai in the remote Oruzgan province, where his tribe is located, because there was no other way he could have gotten there. Other stories said American commandos had tried--and failed--to rescue Karzai when he came under fire from the Taliban.

Seated in the family’s Quetta guest house, Karzai’s brother said the Taliban is waging a war of words as much as of guns. In the courtyard, Karzai supporters gathered. Many were Afghan.

Taliban Tells Tales ‘to Scare People’

“The reason the Taliban are saying these things--like that they have captured my brother--is that they want to scare people,” said Ahmed Wali Karzai. “They are afraid that other people will be going to join him, and they are trying to prevent people from doing that.”

Indeed, the picture painted by family members was almost the opposite of that described by the Taliban. Not only did it sound as if Karzai was unharmed, it appeared he was gaining followers and starting to secure territory.

His brother acknowledged, however, that it is hard to refute Taliban claims. The regime has been right before. It was the Taliban that first announced the capture and execution late last month of Pushtun rebel commander Abdul Haq, who, like Karzai, entered Afghanistan to rally anti-Taliban support.

“Unfortunately, what happened with the capture of Abdul Haq gave them a lot of credibility,” said Ahmed Wali Karzai. “Now it’s easier to make people believe they can capture anyone.”

Later, a testament to the likelihood that Karzai is alive came from the Taliban itself. On Saturday afternoon, a spokesman at the Afghan Consulate in Quetta, who refused to give his name, acknowledged that “Hamid is not yet arrested.” Still, he said 25 of Karzai’s followers had been captured. Like so many other pieces of the story, that information was strongly disputed by people who had talked to Karzai.

The truth was impossible to confirm.

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Stack reported from Islamabad and Rubin from Quetta. Times staff writer Rone Tempest in Islamabad contributed to this report.