Kandahar
Taliban guerrillas launched a pirate radio station this week, broadcasting Islamic hymns and anti-American speeches to five southern Afghan provinces. The station is called Voice of Shariat, after the station the Taliban ran until 2001, when a U.S.–led military invasion ended Islamic hard-line rule. The broadcasts, made from a mobile transmitter roaming somewhere in the region, can be heard just two hours a day, once in the morning and once in the evening. A Taliban spokesman said Voice of Shariat was necessary because “the radios of the world, which are apparently free, are in fact slaves of others.” Many Afghans listen to the BBC or Voices of America, both of which transmit news in Dari and Pashto.
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