Report: Centcom Unit Losing Propaganda War

TAMPA (970 WFLA) -- A problem at U.S. Central Command, headquartered at MacDill Air Force Base. A new investigative report claims a unit that's supposed to fight Islamic extremist propaganda on the internet, is a failure.

The Pentagon says the "webops" unit based at Centcom is effectively countering propaganda from ISIS and Islamist groups in general. But an Associated Press investigation claims Webops has problems with incompetence, cronyism and bad data. Several people who work with the program directly tell A-P it's having little impact. 

A-P reports many of the civilian Arabic language specialists can't speak the language, and don't know enough about Islam to rebut internet propaganda by Islamic State. It also claims officials have been manipulating the data to make the Webops unit look better than it is.


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