Taliban begins use of drone footage in its campaign

Afghan Taliban released a video which shows a suicide bomb attack in the southern Helmand province, promoting its campaign with aerial footage for the first time .

The video stream was uploaded on the group's website on Sunday but came into attention after the US non-governmental organisation SITE reported it on Tuesday.

The Afghan defence ministry said the drone footage showed a suicide bomber speaking in front of the Humvee, which was then driven into a military base in Nawa district of Helmand province and exploded.

The High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle (HMMWV), commonly known as the Humvee, is a military truck provided to Afghan troops by the US forces.

"The remote-controlled drones to capture footage of their (Taliban) fighters conducting attacks is nothing but to instil fear among people and to indicate how far they can get in defeating us, but in fact, using a drone is not something they can call an achievement," the Al Jazeera website quoted Dawlat Waziri, spokesperson for the Afghan defence ministry.

"You can get a drone anywhere, in any shop. They found or bought one, and used it."

Officials in Helmand province later confirmed the bombing, which took place early in October killing a local police chief and several others .

Taliban has stepped up the use of electronic and social media tools to promote its propaganda during the past few years.

The militant group has a website in five languages and also developed a public relation team to enlarge its audience worldwide.

The use of TV, radio and internet was banned in Afghanistan, when the country was under Taliban rule between 1996 and 2001.

The Daesh terrorist group is also known to use simple, commercially available drones to conduct surveillance and carry small explosives in Iraq and Syria.

Earlier this month, a remote-controlled hobby plane, rigged with hidden explosives, killed two Kurdish Peshmerga fighters and injured two French special operations troops near Mosul.