Battle for hearts and minds of Afghans hots up

By JEREMY REES and PAUL TAYLOR

The United States has deployed specialists in psychological operations - nicknamed "psyops" - to central Asia to win the information war against the Taleban.

The 193rd Special Operations Wing - deeply offended by anyone who refers to them as spreaders of propaganda - has been sent to the area and the 4th Psychological Operations Group may already be there, say US press reports.

Their job is to spread leaflets, use loudspeakers and broadcasts to push the American position that terror suspect Osama bin Laden should be handed over and that the Taleban who harbour him, not civilians, will be the target of any military strikes.

The units fly aircraft that monitor and jam the enemy's radio transmissions and instead broadcast their own.

"Psyops are more critical now because it's an information war," a former Army psyops officer, Edward Rouse, told the USA Today newspaper.

American psyops have not always run smoothly.

Their greatest success was the surrender of Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega, which psyops officers like to attribute partly to the three days of deafening heavy metal music that they directed at the Vatican embassy where he was holed up.

Less successful were the Gulf War leaflets that likened Saddam Hussein to Hitler. Unfortunately, Hitler was not the hate figure psyops expected since his enemies, especially Britain and France, were seen by many Arabs as occupying colonial powers in the Middle East.

All leaflets to be dropped into Afghanistan will be vetted by Afghan-Americans, the service says.

As the information war hots up, the timeframe for US-led military action in Afghanistan is narrowing fast.

A host of factors, including politicians' travel plans, the humanitarian situation in Afghanistan, public opinion, the weather and Muslim holidays, all point to a short window of opportunity for action between October 8 and mid-November.

Military analyst Christopher Langton said there was barely a month to act before the icy Afghan winter set in, making it hard to use helicopters and troops.

But he said US President George W. Bush's final decision would depend on whether Washington had intelligence on bin Laden's whereabouts.

Map: Opposing forces in the war against terror

Afghanistan facts and links