ISLAMABAD: Though Google's popular video-sharing site You Tube has banned the airing of jihadi videos, such material is easily available across Pakistan.
The hate material, often used to brainwash youngsters, can now be picked up at music stores and the sales are going northwards after the Lal Masjid operation in the federal capital last year.
Riaz Basheer, an 18-year-old, moved to the port city of Karachi to study medicine, but a jihadi video changed his life.
"I didn't want to get a western education (anymore)... instead, I wanted to kill those who were committing brutalities against my helpless brethren," Basheer, who has since given up his plans to study medicine, told the Daily Times.
Sale of such propaganda material has been banned in Pakistan, but that hasn't deterred music store owners from stocking up on the hate material. Apart from videos, "hate" literature is also readily available at bookstores.
On the road side in the federal capital it is not unusual to find graffiti welcoming the Taliban to Islamabad.
"The sale of such videos and literature have picked up after the Lal Masjid operation," said Zaid Khan, a salesman at a music store owner in the upmarket Super Market area said.
You Tube has banned videos that incite others to commit violent acts, videos on things like how to make bombs and footage of sniper attacks.
The decision was taken because what was once conducted at secret training camps in Afghanistan was now available to anyone, anywhere because of the web. One of the videos posted on You Tube opened with a shot of two jihadis in training.
As one absorbs a kick in the stomach, the caption beneath unfurls: "The clatter of war is music to his ears". On the music stores the "holy" music and bloody documentaries show footage of beheadings and attacks. Kabul, Qandahar, Jalalabad and Quetta are cities where these reportedly made and are then distributed via Karachi.
With just the sound of the tabla in the background, the lyrics invoke the glorious past of Muslims. It talks about jihad and invites youngsters to unite against imperialist powers and infidels.
The music brainwashes the Muslim youth into thinking that violence is the best way to resist the oppressors. The jihadi CDs contain clips of Al Qaeda's attacks on enemies and guerrilla wars in Iraq and also the Waziristan Agency.
These audio and video albums carry Al-Qaeda's messages as well.
"You can get jihadi videos in the black market anywhere in the city," Khan said.
Karachi police confiscated hundreds of such cassettes and arrested dealers a few months ago. Some videos reportedly show what appear to be the planning stages of an attack: fighters assembling mortars in a room with net curtains, or climbing up a verge with what seems to be an improvised bomb.
Others show US soldiers shot dead by insurgent snipers.
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