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A screen shot of Umar Media’s home page before it was taken down. |
The Movement of the Taliban in Pakistan, or Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, launched an official website. Within 24 hours of the website’s launch, the URL is no longer valid.
The website, called Umar Media, is designed to serve as the official media outlet of the Pakistani group, just as Voice of Jihad does for the Afghan Taliban. The Umar Media website has the same the look and feel as the Pakistani Taliban’s sister organization in Afghanistan.
“All the latest videos, magazines, statements, announcements, statements of the chief spokesman, and poems” will be posted on Umar Media, according to an email sent to The Long War Journal on April 5 that announced the launch of the website.
“Any news and video attributed to [the Pakistani Taliban] should not be considered valid” unless it is published on the website, the email stated.
The Movement of the Taliban in Pakistan frequently complains about unofficial statements attributed to its leaders. The al Qaeda-linked group has even issued fatwas, or religious rulings, that attack the media for publishing such statements.
The Taliban also provided emails for its official spokesman, Shahidullah Shahid, as well as for Umar Media.
The Umar Media website was taken down almost immediately; it is unclear who is responsible for shutting it down. An email sent by The Long War Journal to Shahidullah and Umar Media on the status of the website has not yet been answered.
According to the WhoIs information associated with the URL, Umar Media was registered by Malik Faraz, who is based in Karachi, Pakistan.
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5 Comments
Censorship double standards: State terrorism website v insurgent websites… CIA website linked to torture and drones which are radicalizing youth… must be censored then also… http://activist1.wordpress.com/2014/04/06/censorship-double-standards-state-terrorist-websites-v-insurgent-websites/
Does a TTP spokesman directly contact you?
‘Drones which are radicalizing youth”? So SkyNet is working through drones to radicalize youth?
Congratulations to the Long War Journal, which is important enough for people to troll its posts and try to get hits to their websites and articles. The article did not even talk about censorship, only that the official site of the Pakistani Taliban went and down, and there’s a ‘CENSORSHIP!’ comment.
Carol, it is not a double standard, since the Taliban eradicate any and all western media they find in country, how much of a problem do you think they would have censoring a western website? Because Carol seems to the wondrous country that was Taliban controlled Afghanistan was free of censorship. Lol. Who do you think radicalised more ‘youth’? Drone strikes, or a series of militant training camps that ran for a generation in Afghanistan? The alumni of which we can see beheading enemies and destabilising Governments throughout the Middle East.
It shows that the people who took down the website dont want to take official statements of TTP because they are imposing Taliban’s statements created by their own.