Taliban Offer Question-and-Answer Service Online 284
First time accepted submitter nachiketas points out this story about a new online service offered by the Taliban. "Worried about whether Islamic verses on Facebook are allowed? Or that suicide bombers kill innocent civilians? Afghanistan's Taliban have set up a new question-and-answer section on their website to address such issues. The facility on Voice of Jihad, the official website of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan — the Taliban's own name for their movement — allows readers to submit queries to spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid. It is a demonstration of how far the insurgents' attitude towards technology has changed."
The website itself (Score:5, Informative)
Neither TFS nor TFA link to the website in question, so here's it:
http://shahamat-english.com/ [shahamat-english.com]
Unfortunately, it seems that the English version doesn't have a Q&A section, so you can't troll them unless you know Pashto. Too bad.
Re:Umm? (Score:4, Informative)
But is that due to speech / communication they didn't like, or because it was technology itself?
Re:Not too difficult (Score:5, Informative)
Be careful with that. "My hovercraft is full of eels." isn't much of an exaggeration.
Re:Umm? (Score:5, Informative)
they liked airplanes
No. You're confusing the Taliban and Al-Qaeda. The Taliban wasn't involved in 9/11 and they even condemned the attack.
Re:Not a good sign (Score:4, Informative)
Farsi is French for Persian.
No, Farsi is the Persian word for Persian. The French for Persian is apparently "persan".
Citation [wiktionary.org]
And Arabic is not the Esperanto of the Islamic world - unless Arabic is the idealistic but extremely rare constructed language intended for auxiliary use but ultimately relegated to a small hopeful minority. Arabic is more the Latin of the Islamic world - the Holy Book is written* in it, so many people know it, even in areas where nobody speaks it historically.
* Yes, I know the Bible was not originally in Latin, but the most common version, especially in the Middle Ages, was.
Re:I am curious of what they think about Fox news (Score:1, Informative)
No surprise since American Muslims tend to vote overwhelmingly Democrat.
Looking at the site (Score:5, Informative)
OK, so they have a web site. [shahamat-english.com] It's hosted in Malaysia, runs Joomla content management, and uses Gmail for replies. They have Facebook and Twitter links. Their videos are on Youtube, and they have a movie site [shahamat-movie.com] to provide a front for them. The video isn't too useful without translation.
"The Afghanistan Of Islam Rejects Pollution of Western Democracy" [shahamat-english.com] is interesting reading. It's a good summary of the theocratic position, and gives some insight into why this is such a tough war to end.