Aside from the harsh Afghan winter, the fierceness of Afghan fighters, and a few hidden Stinger missiles, the Taliban's best advantage over the US was probably the Afghan ambassador's daily press conference here in Islamabad.

At 4:30 p.m. every day, Taliban Ambassador Abdul Salam Zaeef would read a statement before dozens of TV cameras and scribes, giving out the Taliban's latest estimates of civilian casualties and calling the US "the world's biggest state terrorist."

But now, it appears, the Taliban's weapon of information - or disinformation, as some call it - has been taken away, as the US seizes the advantage.

On Tuesday, Ambassador Zaeef was told to desist from further press conferences, or face expulsion from the only country that formally recognizes the Taliban. Embassies should not be used to attack a third country (the US), Pakistani officials told the ambassador. Almost simultaneously, the US announced that its anti-Taliban coalition would open a media center in Islamabad for the first time, to give daily reports on the war.

"The propaganda war has taken a different turn," says Rifaat Hussein, director of the Defense and Strategic Studies Department at Quaid-e-Azam University in Islamabad. "The battle for the hearts and minds is being waged with new ferocity by the Americans. The government hasn't muzzled the Afghans. They can still meet the press. But they're saying, 'Look, if this is the way you are going to do it, we aren't going to tolerate it.'"

Since air attacks began on Oct. 7, this war has been fought well out of sight. As a result, the battle for perceptions - of who is winning, who is losing, who is dying - has become crucial. In the first few weeks, the Taliban enjoyed an unusual upper hand, issuing daily reports of hospitals bombed, villages destroyed, and civilians killed.

Meanwhile, fearing that leaks to reporters could endanger soldiers on the ground, the US mostly stayed out of this perceptions game. But now, America appears to have entered the game with a vengeance.

"The coalition will be running a new media center, and we hope to open it soon," says Mark Wentworth, spokesman for the US Embassy in Islamabad.

For its part, the Pakistani government has taken a number of steps recently to rein in what it considers to be the engines of disinformation. Mosques have been banned from using their loudspeakers, except for the five-times-a-day call to prayer and the mullahs' weekly sermons on Friday. Religious leaders are banned from holding massive public protests, and some have been placed under house arrest. One, Qazi Hussain, leader of the powerful fringe party Jamaat-e-Islami, is charged with sedition.

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