Twitter to block Taliban's account?

The United States has called on the social micro-blogging site, Twitter, to block the Taliban's account.

US senators want to stop feeds which boast of insurgent attacks on Nato forces in Afghanistan and the casualties they inflict.

Aides for Joe Lieberman, chair of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, said the move was part of a wider attempt to eliminate violent Islamist extremist propaganda from the Internet and social media, The Telegraph reports.

The Taliban has embraced the social network as part of its propaganda effort and regularly tweets about attacks or posts links to its statements.

Twitter feeds including @ABalkhi, which has more than 4,100 followers, and @alemarahweb, which has more than 6,200 followers, regularly feature tweeted boasts about the deaths of "cowardly invaders" and "puppet" Afghan government forces.

The information on Taliban's account ranged from highly accurate, up-to-the-minute accounts of unfolding spectacular attacks, to often completely fabricated or wildly exaggerated reports of American and British casualties.

Meanwhile, Twitter has declined to say if they had been asked to block the feeds by Lieberman.

According to the paper, Twitter is rejecting the move after pointing out that unlike al Qaeda, the Taliban movement is not registered by the State Department as a foreign terrorist organisation.