While the Sunni extremist group banned television, radio and newspapers during its original reign over Afghanistan in the 1990s, it has proven extremely adept at using…
The Taliban* has released a bizarre photo that seems explicitly intended to mock America. The image, released by the militants’ elite Badri 313 Battalion, shows fighters wearing US-made gear captured from the Afghan special forces, planting the white and black flag of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (the self-proclaimed Taliban government), with their pose reminiscent of the iconic World War II-era photo of US soldiers raising an American flag at Iwo Jima. Taliban jihadis in US gear stage mockery of iconic Iwo Jima flag-raising photo https://t.co/iRgtQWaKxd pic.twitter.com/9dr1i50DZi The Taliban ‘Special Forces — Badri 313’ are just mocking America now with their PR machine. #Iwojima pic.twitter.com/QyqMU8GO4h The Iwo Jima photo is highly revered among Americans, and has been replicated in the Marine Corps War memorial in Arlington, Virginia. It won the 1945 Pulitzer Prize for Photography, and has been memorialized in films, songs, coins, stamps, statutes and other media over the decades. The Taliban deployed the Badri 313 Battalion in Kabul this week after entering the Afghan capital on Sunday.
