Mullah Mohammad Omar and the FBI's Most Wanted Terrorists List
Rumours spun out of control on twitter when it was suggested that Mullah Mohammad Omar had been removed from the FBI's Most Wanted Terrorists list.
- Pakistani blogs and media outlets appear to be the main source for a rumour that quickly picked up steam among twitter users, many of whom were Afghan journalists. See here, for example, with the Pakistani newspaper Express Tribune's story:
FBI removes Mullah Omar's name from list of most wanted terroristsIn the past, US officials have held about half a dozen meetings with representatives of Mullah Omar. The Unites States Federal Bureau...- The initial spark this morning seems to have been a tweet by @RatebNoori:
Flash: Mullah Omar's name deleted from FBI's most wanted list. fbi.gov/wanted/wanted_…@@wanted-group-listing- This was retweeted and then repeated by numerous Afghan users, many of whom didn't reference a news report or the FBI's list.
RT @RatebNoori Flash: Mullah Omar's name deleted from FBI's most wanted list. fbi.gov/wanted/wanted_… @wanted-group-listing- This then picked up steam as others started retweeting, googling, and finding the original Pakistani media stories.
Urgent: Taliban not our enemy lets remove Mullah Omar from Black list FBI thenewstribe.com/2011/12/27/fbi…- Some journalists questioned the story.
Wait What? RT @AmiriEhsan: RT @RatebNoori Flash: Mullah Omar's name deleted from FBI's most wanted list. 1.usa.gov/lxaYmf- I used archive.org's Wayback Machine to check whether he had ever been on the list. I had a hunch that he hadn't ever been on that list. There was only one previous snapshot of the page, made on 14 May 2011, but Mullah Mohammad Omar wasn't on the list then.
@RatebNoori well, this is that same page in May 2011, and he's not on the list bit.ly/sRTNty- It was at this point that Tolo News, one of the biggest Afghan television stations, seems to have gone with the story.
- Twitter was still busily repeating the main claim.
- Some made jokes.
- Responding to the flood of tweets, @DanInKabul found the US government website 'Rewards for Justice' which clearly showed Mullah Mohammad Omar still has a $10 million reward on offer.
@strickvl @RatebNoori @amiriehsan @TOLOnews Blacklisted or not, he's still worth $10 million to the US - ow.ly/8aWmw- On a separate page on their site they show Mullah Mohammad Omar clearly on a tier two listing for rewards offered.
Rewards for Justice - rewards for those helping the fight against international terrorism.The Rewards for Justice program is one of the U.S. government's most valuable assets in the fight against international terrorism.Rewards...
