Lethal tweets? Twitter as a weapon against Taliban

Coalition forces in Afghanistan continue to use Twitter to wage a war of words with the Taliban for the hearts and minds of the people in the southwest Asian nation, reports Austin Wright at Politico.

The latest Twitter skirmish occurred June 17 when a pro-Taliban Twitter feed boasted that a recent roadside bombing had killed eight coalition troops.

U.S. Marine Lt. Col. Stewart Upton, a spokesman for the International Security Assistance Force’s Regional Command Southwest who says the Taliban posts about 10 lies or false tweets a day, quickly fired off a clever counter-tweet: “Wow! 8 killed, don’t you think there would be some type of announcement from ISAF? How was your poppy harvest?”

ISAF responds promptly to the Taliban tweets in an effort to force the Taliban to validate its claims, the story said.