U.S. ad blitz targets bin Laden

[Rose Siding]

snip>
On a trip to Islamabad in January 2004, {Rep. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.)} visited the U.S. Embassy and asked then-Ambassador Nancy Powell about who was overseeing the publicity for the rewards program.

"The ambassador said, `I don't know who is working the rewards program,' which was stunning to me," Kirk said.
...
There were no radio ads about the program, even on the Voice of America station where they cost the government nothing, said the staff member, who asked not to be named. "We came back saying, `What a disaster.'" A State Department spokesman had no comment on why the program was not being publicized in Pakistan or Afghanistan, but he said the department's approach has changed.
...
The television ads got off to a rockier start. After running briefly on two stations during the first weekend in February, they were quickly pulled. And the country's largest station, GEO, initially refused to run them for fear of a backlash over their content, according to a U.S. Embassy document.
Last week, a mob broke into the station's headquarters in Karachi after it aired a controversial program unrelated to the rewards program. But after reviewing the ad, station officials agreed to run them regularly beginning Tuesday.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0502120289feb12,1,7430792.story?coll=chi-news-hed

Curious about GEO, the station that had been mobbed, I found this:

Islamic extremists trash Pakistani TV offices after Peres interview
KARACHI (AFP) - Islamic extremists ransacked the offices of a private Pakistani television channel the day after it broadcast an interview with Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Shimon Peres (news - web sites), police said.

A Geo television official said the incident appeared to be a reaction to an interview in which Peres called on Pakistan to establish diplomatic contacts with Tel Aviv.

"We don't yet know the reasons behind the attack, but we suspect it could be a reaction to Mr Peres' interview," Geo TV chief Imran Aslam told AFP on Saturday.

Police said around 40 men armed with sticks, some of them carrying pistols, barged into the building which also houses the mass circulation daily Jang and the English-language newspaper The News.

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/afp/20050129/wl_sthasia_afp/pakistanisraelmedia_050129133605