New York: Fed up with mad, fanatical mullahs in Pakistan talking a blue streak against the United States and India and fanning Islamist terrorism against both states, the US has discreetly started a new initiative to beat the mullahs at their own game.
The US has created a propaganda unit in Pakistan that plans to work with local partners, including moderate religious leaders, to project their counter-extremist messages and push back against the terrorists’ propaganda machine, reported the Associated Press.
The first propaganda unit of its kind set up by an American embassy anywhere in the world, the existence of the three-person unit in the US Embassy public affairs section has been kept hush-hush. The AP spilled the beans, saying the unit set up in July last year was funded with an initial budget of $5 million.
A new US initiative in Pakistan is amplifying the voice of moderate mullahs who are taking on jihadi propaganda. Mohsin Raza/ Reuters
It is time moderate mullahs got a bit of help because the fanatical Taliban mullahs in Pakistan are flush with funds, posters, DVDs and what have you. More dangerously, they are recruiting child suicide bombers as young as nine to blow up NATO targets, according to Afghan intelligence officials who have intercepted would-be attackers.
According to reports, the mullahs start working on children in madrassas as they are considered easier to recruit and more gullible than adults. They are brainwashed and their heads are filled with hateful lies about India, Kashmir and the US.
“They are brainwashed and shown films about supposed atrocities like rapes in Kashmir by Indian forces,” an intelligence official in the National Directorate of Security told Firstpost. “The mullahs in Pakistan spin a fantastic web of lies. The kids have no idea that they are being played.”
US officials declined to provide the Associated Press with details on specific programs they are funding or plan to fund, for fear that publicly acknowledging US involvement would discredit their partners. This makes infinite sense as a moderate mullah who is seen taking US dollars will be considered a stooge and his message of sanity and non-violence will be lost.
Any sign of overt US involvement can also result in death threats. The US ambassador in Pakistan recently visited the 900-student Jaamia Salafia, a madrassa which teaches a puritanical strain of Islam followed by the India-hating Lashkar-e-Taiba, for a meeting of moderate religious leaders who denounced terrorism.
The Associated Press said the militants responded the next day by calling the moderate Muslim cleric Yasin Zafar, who hosted the event, and warning he could be killed. The call was from a member of Jamaat-ud-Dawa, widely believed to be a front group for Lashkar-e-Taiba, according to Zafar.
