WASHINGTON, April 21: Pakistan is high on a list of 24 Muslim countries where the United States is funding projects to discourage religious extremism, says a report in the latest issue of the US News & World Report magazine. The new US strategy towards the Muslim world, the report says, aims at not only encouraging positive thinking towards the West but also at moderating people’s views on religious concepts like jihad.

From military psychological-operations teams and CIA covert operatives to openly funded media and think tanks, Washington is spending tens of millions of dollars to get the job done properly via the White House’s Muslim World Outreach strategy, the US News & World Report said in its April 25 edition.

The “Hearts, Minds, and Dollars” report said the US government has embarked on a campaign of political warfare unmatched since the height of the Cold War.

Realizing that it poorly reached out to the Muslim world through drawing up tens of plans and hundreds of ideas to win Muslim hearts and minds, the US administration is eyeing now third parties in the Muslim world, who share values like democracy, women’s rights, and tolerance.

Although US officials say they are wary of being drawn into a theological battle, the magazine said, many have concluded that America can no longer sit on the sidelines as radicals and moderates fight over the future of a religion with over a billion followers.

The strategy recommends making peace with Muslim groups that eschew violence and are at odds with Al Qaeda, like the Muslim Brotherhood.

“I can guarantee that if you go to some of the unlikely points of contact in the Islamic world, you will find greater reception than you thought,” Milt Bearden, whose 30-year CIA career included long service in Muslim societies, told the US magazine.

“The Muslim Brotherhood is probably more a part of the solution than it is a part of the problem.”

The weekly further revealed that US intelligence officers have been meeting not only with Muslim Brotherhood members, but also leaders of other likeminded groups.

As it did during the Cold War, the US administration has fielded a worldwide network of propagandists, publicists, and payoff artists.

It is convinced that using music, comics, poetry, and the Internet is the best way to get across America’s views to the Arab world.

The administration kicked off major new initiatives in foreign broadcasting — Radio Sawa, a pop music-news station in 2002, and Alhurra, a satellite-TV news network in 2004, both aimed at Arab audiences.

The US weekly cited reports that US officials have peddled fake video news reports and paid columnists to boost policies “here at home”.

The aim is to break off moderate Muslims from radicals.