KABUL — The once media-shy Taliban have gone hi-tech with DVDs, mobile phone messages, ring-tones, e-mail and a website to publicize their exploits and lambaste their Afghan and Western enemies, a think-tank said on Thursday. The Taliban hung televisions and music tapes from trees in an effort to stamp out corrupting Western influences during their hard-line Islamist rule of Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001. Their leaders had only one computer, Afghanistan experts say. But after U.S.-led and Afghan forces toppled the austere movement following the September 11, 2001, attacks, the militants regrouped and relaunched their insurgency in 2005, copying the tactics of roadside and suicide bombs from Iraq. Now the Taliban have also created a “sophisticated communications apparatus” using the full range of media allowing them to project...
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