NATO and Taliban fight it out on Twitter

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As the guns fell silent in Afghan capital Kabul after a 20-hour stand-off between NATO forces and Taliban, the two sides began another battle: on Twitter.

NATO and Taliban may be shying away from a peace process but they had no inhibition to trade in barbs and indulging in no hold barred spat, in a burst of virtual conversations.

The first salvo was fired by the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), who spokesman tweeted, "Re: Taliban spox on #Kabul attack: the outcome is inevitable. Question is how much longer will terrorist put innocent Afghans in harm's way?"

The Taliban – who, when in rule, barred modern technology, including television and music players – fired back.

Taliban tweeter Abdulqahar Balk (@ABalkhi) wrote: "@ISAFmedia i dnt knw.u hve bn pttng thm n 'harm's way' fr da pst 10 yrs.Razd whole vllgs n mrkts.n stil hv da nrve to tlk bout 'harm's way'" (In plain English, it means: I didn't know. You have been putting them in harm's way for the past 10 years.

Razed whole villages and markets. And still have the nerve to talk about harms way) @ISAFmedia, which generally provides dry updates in military language on the security situation in Afghanistan, wrote back, "Really, @abalkhi? Unama reported 80% of civilians causalities are caused by insurgent (your) activities."