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Last Friday, he circulated pictures and videos of militia leaders looking relaxed and relaxed with Ismail Khan, a prominent local commander and anti-Taliban, when Taliban forces captured the key city of Herat.
The message was clear, Mr. Sayed said: “If we can treat our worst enemy Ismail Khan with such respect, there will be no danger to anyone.”
In Kabul, many Taliban-trained journalists were busy in the streets holding a microphone with the logo of the group’s propaganda site. In a video posted to the Twitter account of Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid, a reporter interviews residents of Kabul’s Shahr-e Naw district. When a young boy is asked about the takeover of the capital, the boy replies, “We are happy and live in peace.”
While some responded positively to the message, the digital transfer of power came as a shock to Afghanistan’s best-connected cities. Many of the voices that would once oppose Taliban messages have remained silent for fear of revenge. Digital rights groups said many people with ties to the former government or the US have closed their social media profiles, left chat groups and deleted old messages.
Earlier this week, when Mr. Mujahideen made a press conference announcement on a widely used WhatsApp journalist group, some members left the conversation. One who works for foreign media, who asked not to be identified for fear of retaliation, said they were worried about a backlash from journalists who wrote critically about the Taliban.
Even so, social media bore some signs of resistance. Tuesday’s video of a small group of women protest in Kabul It was widely shared in the presence of Taliban fighters. The next day, videos of an incident in Jalalabad where the Taliban fired at a group of youths who had raised the militants’ flag and held the flag of the fallen Afghan government went viral.
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