EXCLUSIVE: Voice of Taliban on VOA probed

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By Eli Lake

EXCLUSIVE:

Complaints that the U.S. government's Voice of America (VOA) interviewed a top Pakistani Taliban leader have sparked an investigation into VOA's Pashto language service to determine if it has allowed itself to become a platform for terrorist propaganda.

In a letter obtained by The Washington Times, the State Department's acting inspector general, Harold Geisel, said his office will conduct a review "to determine the effectiveness of their broadcast and editorial practices and policies." The service broadcasts into the Afghanistan-Pakistan border region that serves as a refuge for al Qaeda and the Taliban.

The probe was spurred by concerns first raised by Rep. Mark Steven Kirk, an Illinois Republican who in the past had championed the Pashto-language service known as Deewa Radio. Mr. Kirk said he became concerned that American taxpayers were providing the Taliban a megaphone after he learned that Pakistani Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud had been interviewed by the service -- and claimed responsibility for terrorist bombings in the Pakistani city of Lahore in March.

"The U.S. taxpayer should not be subsidizing free air-time for al-Qaeda terrorists and Taliban leaders," Mr. Kirk wrote in a May 5 letter to Mr. Geisel. "These broadcasts put the lives of American soldiers in danger and undermine the policies of the United States in Pakistan and Afghanistan."

VOA Director Danforth Austin said Deewa Radio was simply seeking to report the news in a way that was credible to listeners from the same ethnic Pashtun group as the Taliban.

He told The Times that the Taliban has threatened the families of his reporters and broadcasters and declared Deewa Radio "haram" -- forbidden by Islamic law.

"We wouldn't be threatened by the Taliban if we weren't showing them up for what they were and in a way that is credible," Mr. Austin said.

Nonetheless, the station at times has inadvertently served as an outlet for the Taliban to advance its military strategy by misleading Pakistani authorities. For example, a Taliban spokesman told the VOA service in an April 24 interview that militant fighters were withdrawing from Pakistan's Buner province when they did not do so.

The investigation of VOA's Pashto service is another example of the long-standing tension about the role of American-funded broadcasting.