DVDs and the insurgency in Afghanistan

British troops are today taking over for US troops in Afghanistan’s restive southern province of Helmand as part of a broader NATO peacekeeping operation. There’s been increasing violence in the area in recent weeks – twenty Taliban fighters were killed by US troops just this weekend – and the Brits are taking on a tough ...

British troops are today taking over for US troops in Afghanistan's restive southern province of Helmand as part of a broader NATO peacekeeping operation. There's been increasing violence in the area in recent weeks - twenty Taliban fighters were killed by US troops just this weekend - and the Brits are taking on a tough assignment: protecting and spurring development, flushing Taliban fighters out of the southern mountain ranges, and possibly tackling poppy eradication efforts.

British troops are today taking over for US troops in Afghanistan’s restive southern province of Helmand as part of a broader NATO peacekeeping operation. There’s been increasing violence in the area in recent weeks – twenty Taliban fighters were killed by US troops just this weekend – and the Brits are taking on a tough assignment: protecting and spurring development, flushing Taliban fighters out of the southern mountain ranges, and possibly tackling poppy eradication efforts.

This nugget in a BBC analysis caught my eye and encapsulates not only the challenges the Brits face in the region, but the nexus of technology and terrorism in Taliban recruitment: “DVDs being handed out on the Pakistan border to recruit fighters demonstrate organisation and training.

Map of Afghanistan
Map of Afghanistan

The images, professionally edited and presented, run with a background of religious chanting and show foreign fighters being taught tactics on blackboards in classrooms.

Alongside images of international forces being hit by roadside bombs is footage of these devices being made – it is half inspiration and half training manual. And it is in Pashtu – they are trying to recruit Afghans.”

Here’s more on the role of DVDs in terrorist recruitment.

Carolyn O'Hara is a senior editor at Foreign Policy.

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