Pakistani Taliban recruits via Facebook

PESHAWAR - Agence France-Presse

AP photo

The Pakistani Taliban has set up a page on Facebook to recruit enthusiasts to write for a quarterly magazine and to edit video, a spokesman confirmed Friday, AFP has reported.

The Umar Media TTP page, which has more than 270 likes, appears to have been created in September and has just a handful of messages written in English.

"Umar Media is proud to announce online jobs opportunities (sic)," says the first post on the networking website, written on October 25.

"Job discription (sic) is video editing, translations, sharing, uploading, downloading and collection of required data," it says, giving an email address and asking readers to "plz spread it. This fb account ma be deleted." Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) spokesman Ehsanullah Ehsan confirmed to AFP by telephone on Friday that the faction was "temporarily" using the page "to fulfil its requirements" before launching its own website.

US-based organisation SITE Intelligence Group says the TTP uses Facebook as "a recruitment centre".
 "Through its official media arm, Umar Media, the TTP has taken to Facebook to recruit contributors for their media work and the group's forthcoming publication 'Ayah-E-Khilafat' (Sign of the Caliphate)," it said in a statement.

The TTP Facebook page describes the publication as its "official quarterly magazine" and asks writers to submit articles "on (a) topic of your choice", or on jihadi current affairs, history, Islamic movements or the plight of Muslims.

Last month, the TTP claimed responsibility for planting a bomb under the car of a prominent Pakistani journalist and TV anchorman, Hamid Mir.

Mir had been criticised by the Taliban after the faction claimed responsibility for shooting teenage activist Malala Yousafzai in October.