Psychological Operations
in Afghanistan

By  Herbert A. Friedman

CONTINUED

On November 2, the Pentagon announced that they had dropped a new aerial propaganda leaflet. The oversized leaflet depicted three photographs of the face of Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar targeted by the crosshairs of a gun scope at the far right. The Mullah had earlier forbidden any photographs of himself. To the left of the photographs were three photographs of the license plate of one of Omar's vehicles, again covered by the crosshairs. This second photo was probably taken during an earlier operation when an American Predator unmanned surveillance aircraft fitted with two "Hellfire" anti-tank missiles had targeted the car but allegedly was not allowed to fire due to a rules of engagement dispute. General Tommy Franks later stated that he had full authority to fire but was unable to get the car in a clear field of fire where there would be no collateral damage. To the left of the leaflet are three pairs of eyes alternated with the text "We are watching!" The leaflet is identical on both sides except for the text, which is in Pashto or Dari. The Pentagon announced that 16 million leaflets have been produced and would be dropped in batches at intervals.

This permission to fire at enemy leaders was discussed in an 18 November 2001 Washington Post article by Thomas E. Ricks titled "Target Approval Delays Cost Air Force Key Hits." Ricks claimed that:

As many as 10 times over the last six weeks, the Air Force believed it had top Taliban and al Qaida members in its cross hairs in Afghanistan but was unable to receive clearance to fire in time to hit them, according to senior Air Force officials - Air Force Lt. Gen. Charles F. Wald, who until earlier this month commanded the air campaign, has complained about the clearance problems directly to Franks more than a dozen times since the war began on 7 October, officials said. They said he never received a response. "CENTCOM was a black hole on this," one officer said, referring to the Central Command...Adding to these problems has been recurring friction between the military's operations and what amounts to a parallel war being waged by the CIA, which has played a significant combat role in Afghanistan, carrying out its own airstrikes with unmanned aircraft and deploying covert operatives on the ground, officials said - the CIA is not only gathering intelligence but also conducting airstrikes using an unmanned aircraft that carries missiles. Officials disclosed that over the last month, the agency's drones, called Predators, have fired about 40 Hellfire antitank missiles, a first in warfare - U.S. Special Forces troops are now being forced to go into Afghanistan on the ground to pursue members of the al Qaida terrorist network and Taliban leaders who could have been killed from the air earlier in the campaign.

Matthew Wallin of the American Security Project suspects that leaflets depicting the Taliban leaders were not effective. He says:

The premise of using printed material like leaflets in a country with low literacy rates presents an immediate challenge. For a leaflet to be effective in Afghanistan, it has to convey a simple message without assuming that the viewer can read, and convince that viewer to take a specific course of action. Beyond just the fundamental issue of low literacy, the target audience must have familiarity and understanding of the images used—and images that are familiar to American producers of these materials might not be familiar to an Afghan audience.

As Afghanistan also has little television or print media, images that may seem commonplace to westerners may cause the target audience to draw a blank. For instance, images of Osama bin Laden or Taliban leaders in leaflet materials resonated little with rural Afghans who had no knowledge of what these figures looked like. Subsequently, leaflets of these individuals depicted with crosshairs superimposed over their faces may not have conveyed the same message to Afghans as it did to Westerners.

Leaflet EF3C14L1

The same general image was used in another leaflet except that there was one set of eyes and one photograph of the alleged Omar. This might have given the Taliban leader a laugh because as you will discover later in this article, the photograph may not have been of Omar. It is possible that the Coalition had the wrong man on the leaflet.

You are under our observation!

Photos of Omar used in News Reports of his Death

Note: The Coalition searched for Mullah Omar for 14 years without success. In 2015, Afghan officials reported that he had actually died in Karachi, Pakistan in 2013. The Afghan spy agency had pronounced him dead in 2011, only to back off those claims later. There is still debate about whether he is really dead or this report is further Taliban disinformation. On 30 July 2015, the Taliban announced that a new leader had been appointed, Mullah Akhtar Mansour. He called for unity, saying that the group will continue fighting. On 21 May 2016, the Coalition reported that it had attacked and likely killed Taliban leader Mullah Akhtar Mansour by a drone strike in a remote region along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. A week after the death of Mansour had been verified, the Taliban named a senior religious cleric, Mawlawi Haibatullah Akhundzada as its new leader, a decision the Afghan militant group hopes will avoid succession disputes.

300,000 copies of this leaflet were disseminated by Task Force Sword. Also known as TF 11, it was first inserted into Afghanistan in October 2001. On 19 December 2001, after it had been concluded that any remaining al-Qaida and Taliban elements believed to be in Tora Bora had melted into the local population or fled into Pakistan, TF Sword was inactivated.

We should also mention that the Coalition loved this symbol of watching eyes. During Operation Iraqi Freedom, three different leaflets were prepared that depicted a pair of eyes ominously watching the viewer. Besides the implied threat “We know where you are,” some believe that there was also an implication of the “evil eye.”

This image is from a 2010 report on the U.S. Marine Corps Information Operations, and their attempt to get into the PSYOP business rather than rely on the Army. Some of the text is:

Information Operations is not all about technology, Focused on individual capabilities, i.e., PYSOP, EW, CNO, etc., Strategic Communication, or Public Affairs.

It is all about influencing key decision makers and populations through operations within and affecting the information environment, The art of integrating lethal and non-lethal capabilities to affect the information environment (supports combat operations), Employed across the spectrum of conflict and throughout every phase of operations, and Consistent with strategic communication goals and synchronized with public affairs.

Why do I depict it? Because it shows the images of various wanted terrorists, including that of Mullah Omar above.

Leaflet AF-3-D-5-L2

On the subject of watching the enemy, this leaflet depicts what appears to be an eagle keeping careful watch over the countryside. This appears to be an early leaflet because it does not use the term “Coalition.”

The Joint nations are watching you
Cease resistance, otherwise you will be killed

Note: I have also seen this leaflet without code number and with the top message with a green background.

On the same day, the Pentagon stated that leaflets had been dropped warning the Afghans not to pick up the yellow cluster bombs that were similar in color to the HDR food packets. Human rights groups had criticized the use of the cluster bombs because it was thought that children might be attracted to the bright yellow color. The Pentagon reported that the color of the humanitarian Daily Rations would be blue in the future.

Humanitarian Aid Packet and BLU 97 Cluster Bomb

On the same day, the Pentagon stated that leaflets had been dropped warning the Afghans not to pick up the yellow cluster bombs that were similar in color to the HDR food packets. Human rights groups had criticized the use of the cluster bombs because it was thought that children might be attracted to the bright yellow color. The Pentagon reported that the color of the humanitarian Daily Rations would be blue in the future.

AFD39

The warning leaflet is AFD39. The leaflet depicts a hand reaching toward a food packet on one side and a short message explaining that this is safe. The back of the leaflet depicts a hand reaching for a bomblet, and shows bomblets in several forms on the ground. There is a skull and crossed bones at the center of the leaflet warning finders of the danger. The text is short and sweet:

Clean and safe food / Halal

Bomb/Danger

AFD29o

There is an entire series of leaflets coded AFD29 with an added letter. The last I have seen is AFD29u. Most have the same general message. On the front they usually depict Aiman al-Zawahiri and Osama bin-Laden. On the back the two terrorist leaders are pictured again with a text:

$25,000,000 reward for information leading to the whereabouts and capture of these two men. Contact Coalition authorities.

2,310,000 copies of this leaflet were disseminated by M129 leaflet bombs in the first year of the war.

Handout AFG021j

This is a handbill, which means it is larger than the standard leaflet and meant to be handed to the target audience, not dropped on them. The front has two photographs of Osama bin Laden and the back is all text in Pashto, Dari and Arabic. The text is:

Osama bin Laden

Fugitive Felon

Osama Bin Laden is responsible for the torture, death and suffering of Afghans. Give us information regarding his hiding place so we can capture him. We are working with the fighters for his arrest and you can help us.

Leaflet rolls being packed at Fort Bragg, NC for loading on to a PDU-5/B leaflet bombs that will be dropped in support of Operation Enduring Freedom

On November 8, the Pentagon announced that 16 million propaganda leaflets had been dropped on Afghanistan. The previous day the 4th PSYOP Group at Ft. Bragg had printed 800,000 new leaflets and packed them inside 15 propaganda bombs to be shipped to Afghanistan. The PSYOP troops were placed on a war footing at the start of the operation and regularly worked 12-hour shifts, 24 hours a day.

Curiously, we know that after 16 million leaflets had been dropped, on the very same day, 8 November, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld had a sudden revelation and asked Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in a short memorandum on PSYOP that he called a “snowflake”:

Who in the government is in charge of psychological warfare, public relations and the influence campaign?

This is an interesting question because not only is it rather late in the game to be determining who is in charge, it also implies that someone should be in charge. These are quite different areas of expertise. PSYWAR is the planned use of propaganda and other psychological actions having the primary purpose of influencing the opinions, emotions, attitudes, and behavior of hostile foreign groups in such a way as to support the achievement of national objectives. It is aimed at the enemy. Public Relations are much more difficult to define and there are literally hundreds of definitions. It is used in so many different ways that it is difficult to generalize, but we might say something like “communications often in the form of news distributed in a form which may include newspaper, magazine, radio, television, Internet or other forms of media in an attempt to influence a favorable image of a government.” The fact is, public relations really have more to do with business and the public than government operations. I have not found a good definition for influence operations although we all know what they entail. Perhaps the latest PSYOP manuals define it. I did find one disparaging comment about the US operation in Afghanistan in The Princeton Project on National Security report Non-Military Strategies for Countering Islamist Terrorism that says:

The most comprehensive assessment of the current U.S. strategic influence campaign found that initial efforts after 9/11 to win the “battle of ideas” lacked a clear organizational structure, an agreed national strategy, and adequate financial and especially human resources. To improve interagency coordination among the multiple executive branch bodies involved in U.S. strategic influence campaigns, it created the new position of deputy national security adviser for strategic communication and outreach

So, perhaps Rumsfeld had a point. Who was in charge of all these operations? And, should any one person or organization be in charge of operations that are so different?

And yet, with all the controversy, Christopher J. Lamb says in Review of Psychological Operations Lessons Learned from Recent Operational Experience, National Defense University Press Washington, D.C. September 2005, that the PSYOP campaign was effective:

In several instances, a strong correlation between PSYOP objectives and activities on the one hand, and observable enemy behavior on the other, was apparent. Typically this occurred when tactical PSYOP products asked for a specific behavior, which was then observed, and for which no other explanations seem as plausible. During OEF, PSYOP leaflets and broadcasts directed at enemy forces in Konduz appeared to result in the surrender of 1,000 Taliban fighters. Unlike surrender and desertion of enemy forces in OIF, the Taliban forces were not facing a sizable U.S. ground force, and therefore the correlation between the value of the PSYOP effort per se and enemy behavior seems stronger.

The Taliban showed signs of collapse on November 14. They had threatened to fight to the death, but they surprised everyone by fleeing the Afghan capital of Kabul in the dark of the night. The war now entered a new phase as American Special Forces hunted bin Laden and his terrorist group in the mountains and caves of southeastern Afghanistan. They set up roadblocks along the refugee-filled roads. That same day the United States broadcast radio messages and dropped 1.5 million leaflets offering 25 million dollars to anyone willing to betray bin Laden.

The front of the leaflet pictured Aiman al-Zawahiri at the left and Osama bin Laden at the right. Al-Zawahiri is an Egyptian doctor turned militant, leader of Jamaat-ul-Jihad, and suspect in the bombing of two U.S. Embassies in East Africa that killed over 220 people. He is considered a top aide to bin Laden. The text "Up to $25,000,000 reward" is at the center of the leaflet between the photographs. The back of the leaflets has the same text in Pashto and Dari at left and right that reads, "Up to $25,000,000 reward for information leading to the whereabouts or capture of these two men." Osama bin laden is shown at the top center, and Aiman al-Zawahiri at bottom center. 

Friendship

On November 19, the Army Times reported a new leaflet dropped in Afghanistan. This leaflet displays an American family on the left and an Afghan family on the right. Beneath the American family, a map of the United States is in the form of a flag in red, white and blue. Beneath the Afghan family, a map of Afghanistan is in the black, red and green colors of their national flag. Light-skinned and dark-skinned hands are clasped together at the center of the leaflet beneath the word "Friendship." The back of the leaflet has the following text:

No one should tell you how to live. The Partnership of Nations will help rescue the Afghan people from the Taliban criminals and foreign terrorists.

Leaflet Friendship II? ­ AFD030b

There is no code on the "Friendship" leaflet, but we know from Army documentation that a leaflet AFD30a exists. 480,000 copies of this leaflet were disseminated by M129 leaflet bombs in the first year of the war. That first "Friendship" leaflet may have a significant error. Notice that the map of Afghanistan is covered by a three-color flag in a horizontal format. The actual Afghan flag has the three colors in a vertical format. A second almost identical leaflet with the same text was printed and coded AFD30b. This leaflet depicts the flag of Afghanistan over the map in the proper vertical format. A third variety coded AFD030c exists and is identical to AFD30b except that the frame around the vignette on the front and the back is a thick black line.

AFD62

On November 20, The United States Central Command (Centcom) released another leaflet to the public. This leaflet showed the strength of the Partnership forces and threatened the Taliban with death if they did not flee. The leaflet has four drawn illustrations, two on each side. On the front, an armed Taliban truck is shown. The second picture shows a large bomb under a parachute dropping on three of the vehicles. This is the BLU-82, the Volkswagen-sized 15,000-pound bomb that is dropped from the back of a C-130 Combat Talon aircraft. The blast radius of this super bomb is about 600 yards. Text at the bottom states:

Taliban: we know where you are.

The pictures on the back show two Taliban soldiers, identified by their black turbans, throwing down their weapons and fleeing the scene. The final picture shows a large burning crater. Text at the bottom says:

Stop fighting for the Taliban and live.

There is a second variety of this leaflet. The vignettes are identical, although the color is slightly different by a few shades. The second version has text at the top and bottom of the leaflet and the font is slightly smaller in size. The Coalition codes this leaflet AFD62a. 520,000 copies of leaflet 62a were dropped on Afghanistan.

Leaflet AFD 62b

There is also a leaflet coded AFD 62b. The images and text are identical to AFD 62. The difference is the text which is in Arabic.  Why would the Coalition drop an Arabic leaflet on the Taliban? Perhaps they wanted to address those foreign fighters that came to Afghanistan to take part in Jihad, but did not speak the local languages. A PSYOP soldier told me that they were designed to target al Qaida members. Only 60,000 copies of 62b were printed and dropped over Afghanistan. The text is:

Taliban: we know where you are

Stop fighting for the Taliban and live

60,000 copies of this leaflet were disseminated by M129 leaflet bombs in the first year of the war.

We should mention  that the Blu-82 might have been used in another PSYOP campaign. I first heard of this when a reporter embedded in Kandahar Province told me a story of a discussion about PSYOP with a Canadian Army captain:

One of the Canadian officers cited the example in Mazar-i-Sharif in late 2001 where the US Rangers were preparing to storm a Taliban stronghold and expected to take heavy casualties. Someone from PSYOP managed to get a postponement and arranged to have leaflets saying "Look West tomorrow." The next day a huge bomb was dropped west of the position, then more leaflets saying "Tomorrow that is you". The next day the Taliban had fled and the position was taken without a shot.

I asked some friends in Special Operations if they had heard of such an operation. There answer was:

Three BLU-82s have been dropped in Afghanistan. Two were enough to break the defenses of Mazar-I-Sharif and the third broke the back of Taliban resistance at Kandahar.

BLU-82 dropped in Vietnam to make a landing zone

In Vietnam the BLU-82 bomb was called “Command Vault.” The picture above might be the first BLU-82 dropped in Vietnam to make a landing zone. An article by the St. Petersburg Times of 28 December 1971 says in part:

Americans are blasting Indochina with a bomb that kills most living things within a square mile in order to create an instant helicopter landing pad.

So, it appears that the very sight of the American super-bomb is still enough to cause some enemy to withdraw from the field of combat. 

No further leaflets were released to the public until December 8. That day three leaflets were partially illustrated in an article published in the London Daily Telegraph. The article was entitled "Hippy who Waged War with Music and Posters," and was written by Toby Harnden.

AFD56b

The first leaflet shows four members of al-Qaida or the Taliban. The individual at the far left is identified as "Muttawakil," and is believed to represent the Taliban Foreign Minister Mullah Abdul Wakil Muttawakil. The next figure is Osama bin Laden. The third figure is identified as "Haggani," and would appear to be Jalaluddin Haggani, a senior Taliban commander who was quoted as saying "We are eagerly awaiting the American troops to land on our soil, where we will deal with them in our own way." The fourth individual wears the black Taliban turban, but is otherwise unidentified. Three Afghans are seen hanging from a gallows in the background. The text on the leaflet is:

The Taliban reign of fear...

At the left and right of the leaflet, we can just make out the fearful face of snarling Jinn. The Koran identifies the jinn as creatures created from a smokeless fire. They lie and practice deceit to fulfill their own desire for evil. Showing them with the Taliban implies that the leaders have been deceived and turned toward evil by the supernatural creatures.

On the back the four men have turned into the monsters that they are. The text is:

The reign of the Taliban drug-lords

2,010,000 copies of this leaflet were disseminated by M129 leaflet bombs in the first year of the war.

Lennea Mueller mentions the Jinn in her 2012 Institute of World Politics paper: “Integrating Cultural Geography with Psychological Operations: Islamic Superstitions.”

The most exploitable belief to use would be the paralyzing fear of jinn and/or Satan. The name jinn comes from itjinan, meaning “concealed.” The Qur’an says, “Surely he sees you, he and his tribe, from where you see them not. Although the human eye is too weak to see them, some believe jinn can actually take the form of humans, even able to marry and have children. Muslims are very mindful about where they pray, since jinn can be found anywhere thought to be impure: abandoned settlements, bathrooms, sewage, garbage, open deserts, and fields. Jinn also can possess whatever and whomever they wish. In addition to possessing animals and trees, they can take over the human mind.

When turned over, the back of the leaflet shows the four faces altered slightly to resemble skulls, an American bit of trickery that was practiced during WWII when Adolf Hitler's face was changed to a skull-like countenance in an attempt to say that he represented death. In place of the gallows, an explosion is shown with debris thrown into the air. The text goes on to say:

...is about to end!

The Rand monograph implies that this leaflet is ineffective since although some Americans might recognize one or two of the Afghan leaders from television and newspapers, it is doubtful that any Afghan peasants would recognize them. If the finders of the leaflets believed that the four men were just average Afghans, then depicting them as skulls on the back could imply that the U.S. intended to kill all Afghans. In addition, since Osama bin Laden was not a Taliban leader, his presence as an Arab foreigner would not be understood by the local Pashtuns. Americans understood exactly what this leaflet meant, but to Afghans it was probably quite confusing.

 

AFD51c

The second leaflet is in a vertical format and shows bin Laden playing chess and moving Taliban figures around the board. It should be noted that the Taliban had banned chess in Afghanistan. The text on this leaflet is:

Expel the foreign rulers and live in peace.

The back of this same leaflet shows a figure identified as bin Laden holding a chain to the collar of a "kuchi," a dog of nomads. The dog has the head of Mullah Omar. The text asks:

Who really runs the Taliban?

It had been reported earlier that this leaflet was dropped over Kandahar. 2,630,000 copies of this leaflet were disseminated by M129 leaflet bombs in the first year of the war.

David Champagne, civilian analyst for the 4th PSYOP Group at Fort Bragg, NC. Said about this leaflet in a 2001 WNYC Radio interview:

In Afghanistan, Kuchi dogs guard all the camps, sort of like the American “yellow dog.” You know the one, the Southern “yellow dog?” They keep them outside because dogs are not allowed inside people’s homes. And of course, Osama bin Laden is dressed in an Arab outfit. He is not dressed in native Afghan clothes, and what we are saying is that Mullah Omar is his dog.

I was told an interesting anecdote about this leaflet by U. S. Army Specialist Four Marshall D., 8th PSYOP Battalion, Product Development Center, Fort Bragg, NC. According to the Specialist, the designers of the vignette did not know what kind of dog to depict on the leaflet. One of the Fort Bragg PSYOP officers had a dog, so the staff took a photograph of the animal and placed Mullah Omar’s head on it using a Corel program. The dog's name was Duke. Later, when CNN discovered the leaflet they went into great detail analyzing the meaning of the beast with human head. The PSYOP team found it humorous because it was just a propaganda image and not so great an amount of thought and philosophy had gone into the selection.

The controversial white dog running from the lion leaflet

Many years later, in September 2017, the Coalition prepared a leaflet depicting a white dog running from a lion. On the side of the dog was a statement from the Koran (the Shuhada) that appears on the white flag of the Taliban. The leaflet also provides phone numbers for people to contact the coalition with information. It is possible that the people preparing the leaflet did not know the meaning of the Arabic statement on the flag:

There is no god but Allah, and Muhammad is his Messenger.

The image seems very clear. The Taliban is cowardly and runs from the Afghan Lion. Above the image, the text text in the Pashto language urged people to report insurgents to the authorities:

Take back your own freedom from the terrorist dogs. Help coalition forces until the enemies are killed or wiped out.

Take back your own freedom. Live freely in your own home. Call this number.

Yet, when it was realized that the dog is considered unclean by some Muslims, not from anything said the Koran but from some religious commentaries, and they might object to the leaflet, all hell broke loose. Major General James Linder said in a statement from the Headquarters, Special Operations Joint Task Force – Afghanistan, 6 September 2017:

On September 5, U.S. Forces conducted a leaflet drop in Parwan Province. The design of the leaflets mistakenly contained an image highly offensive to both Muslims and the religion of Islam. I sincerely apologize. We have the deepest respect for Islam and our Muslim partners worldwide. There is no excuse for this mistake. I am reviewing our procedures to determine the cause of the incidence and to hold the responsible party accountable. Furthermore I will make appropriate changes so this never happens again. Resolute Support remains committed to Afghanistan’s future, and I offer my sincerest apologies.

Arturo Munoz wrote a report titled, U.S. Military Information Operations in Afghanistan: Effectiveness of Psychological Operations 2001-2010 Published by the RAND Corporation. This monograph tracks the implementation of PSYOP in Afghanistan from late 2001 to 2010. He says that no one has compiled a comprehensive record of all the decentralized PSYOP campaigns. To protect local collaborators from reprisals and minimize the military “footprint,” PSYOP activities increasingly are classified, which further impedes accurate comparisons of past and present practices. Some of the author’s comments about PSYOP failures are (edited for brevity):

Various leaflets were designed with Koranic verses printed on them, admonishing the faithful to avoid violence and maintain peaceful relations with everyone. Although the messages themselves were perfectly acceptable, it was questionable in the eyes of the target audience whether unbelievers should be quoting the Koran. Worst of all, these Koranic verses being printed on a leaflet to be dropped from an airplane or a helicopter was not acceptable. It was considered blasphemous to drop pieces of paper with Koranic verses on the ground, because the holy verses of revelation were sullied with dirt. Likewise, U.S. PSYOP personnel dropped colorful soccer balls from low-flying Blackhawk helicopters depicting the flags of coalition nations. However, the Saudi flag has the shuhada (declaration of Islamic faith) written on it. Some Afghans and Arabs felt that kicking the holy statement was blasphemy, and the military reportedly apologized to the Saudis and the Afghans for the gaffe.

After I mentioned this comment from Munoz, I heard from Lieutenant Colonel Jeff Scott who put a different twist on the story. He said: 

The soccer ball incident Munoz refers to was not done by PSYOP personnel. The balls were donated by a private company to an aviation unit that distributed the balls on their own. I know because in 2007 when the incident occurred, I had to deal with the “claimed offense” and was responsible for PSYOP product development and distribution/dissemination in Afghanistan. 

The real issue is lack of continuity between PSYOP units and the units they supported. Each supported unit wanted to start over with a new plan and in most cases threw out (removed all plans, products, and MOE from the server) to create space for their new plans. 

As Psychological Operations Task Force Afghanistan Commander from January 2007 to January 2008, I stored everything we had done and the unit before us on a separate hard drive and handed off to our replacements. When I returned in June 2009 everything was gone. 

[Author's Note] I can vouch for Munoz's comments about secrecy and classification. While the war was still going on I was contacted by the U.S. Army's Lessons Learned publication. They asked permission to use images from this article. I was amused and wrote back, "Shouldn't I be asking you for permission to use your images since you are the army, and I am a civilian." Their answer was short and concise. "At this time all the leaflets are classified, but we can use yours because they are on a public open civilian website."

The Taliban responded to the leaflet, saying it proves America's "hatred" of Islam and makes clear that the war in Afghanistan "is a war between Islam and unbelief."

The governor of Parwan province, Mohammad Hasem, also condemned the leaflet as "unforgivable," adding that an investigation would be held:

Those who have committed this unforgivable mistake in the publicity, propaganda or media section of the coalition forces will be tried and punished.

Apparently, political correctness still rules in psychological operations.