[Marxism] On the Air, the Voice of Sunni Rebels in Iraq

["Walter Lippmann" <walterlx@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

(Despite the massive numbers of soldiers and money being spent to
crush the Iraqi resistance, the Iraqi resistance keeps resisting.
People really don't like liberators who come bearing bayonets!)
==================================================================

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/21/world/middleeast/21sunni.html
January 21, 2007
On the Air, the Voice of Sunni Rebels in Iraq
By MARC SANTORA and DAMIEN CAVE

BAGHDAD, Jan. 20 - The video starts with a young American soldier
patrolling an Iraqi street. His head is obscured by leaves, so a red
target is digitally inserted to draw the viewer's eye. A split second
later, the soldier collapses, shot. Martial music kicks in, a jihadi
answer to John Philip Sousa. The time and place of the attack scrolls
at the bottom of the screen.

Such tapes, along with images of victims of Shiite militias and
unflattering coverage of Shiite leaders, are beaming across Iraq and
much of the Middle East 24 hours a day, broadcast by a banned Iraqi
satellite television station that has become a major information
center for the Sunni insurgency - and the focus of a cat-and-mouse
hunt that has exasperated and infuriated American and Iraqi forces.

Making the situation even more galling for the authorities, American
and Iraqi officials say that money stolen from the United States
probably helps pay for the station.

"They do not have programs but buffoonery, blaspheming and support
for terrorism," said Jalal al-Din al-Sagheer, a senior member of the
Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, a Shiite party.
"The source of funding for the channel is theft."

The channel's founder, Meshaan al-Juburi, is a former Sunni member of
Parliament who was indicted last February on charges of embezzling
millions of American dollars meant to pay for a vast pipeline
protection force he had been assigned to help build with recruits
from Salahuddin Province. He was accused of collecting salaries for
thousands of soldiers who did not exist.

He denied the charges and went into hiding, fleeing to Syria.

But the American and Iraqi officials said he funneled some of the
money to Sunni insurgents, and they suspect much of it helped him
shift the programming on his channel, Al Zawra ("the gate" in
Arabic), from popular music videos and dance shows to gruesome and
detailed death scenes.

Iraqi officials said Mr. Juburi made the switch to irritate his
critics, and to try and buy himself protection from prosecution.

"He started showing the insurgency videos just to be close to the
resistance," said Mahmoud al-Mashhadani, a Sunni Arab and speaker of
Parliament. "Because the only thing that can save him from punishment
is for the Iraqi government to collapse."

Iraqi officials banned the station on Nov. 5, focusing on its
anti-Shiite footage and accusing it of "agitating the people against
a large Iraqi sect with killing and genocide." Since then, the
station has become a pirate outfit, fleeing new, makeshift
headquarters at least twice.

Some top American military officials say they have aggressively tried
to find where the broadcasts originate to put an end to them, but so
far they have failed.

Baha al-Araji, a Shiite member of Parliament familiar with efforts to
cut off the station, said the Iraqi government had also asked
Nilesat, the Egyptian broadcaster responsible for transmitting the
station via satellite, to cancel its contract with Al Zawra. So far,
the company has refused, and the Egyptian government has rejected
requests to intervene.

Iraqi officials said Nilesat promised not to renew Al Zawra's
contract, though they did not know when it would expire.

The station's popularity is being aided by growing fears among Sunnis
in neighboring countries of Shiite domination in Iraq, fears Al Zawra
stokes through the often gruesome videotape of what it identifies as
death-squad victims.

As neighborhoods in Baghdad and elsewhere continue to be purged of
Sunnis, the broadcasts prominently list the names of areas that have
been taken over, advocating bloody vengeance. And even as America
considers sending more troops to Iraq, in part to protect Sunnis from
being slaughtered, the channel is meant to inspire resistance.

Mr. Juburi's critics said he has a history of parlaying political
favor into personal fortunes. Iraqi officials said he made millions
as a cigarette supplier under Saddam Hussein, and later ingratiated
himself with Americans searching for Sunnis to bring into Iraq's new
government.

Mr. Juburi now lives openly and comfortably in Syria.

He refused requests for an interview, but has often appeared on other
Arab satellite channels to defend the station. Earlier this month on
Al Jazeera, he debated Sadiq al-Musawi, a Shiite Iraqi political
analyst, condemning Iraq's government and what he described as an
ambitious effort to "defame" Al Zawra.

In an interview conducted via e-mail, a representative of Al Zawra,
who did not reveal his name, said that the station's leaders had been
a direct target of the Americans, and forced to move twice. The
representative railed against the Americans and the Shiite militias,
as well as the government of Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki.

"Our media's message is to broadcast the voice of the resisters to
the American and Iranian occupation, to reveal the crimes of Badr
Organization and Moktada's army and the gangs of Maliki," the
representative said, citing two prominent Shiite militias, "and
document it and work on forming a legal directorate to prosecute them
in international courts for the crimes of genocide against the Sunni
Arabs in Iraq."

When the station shuttered its Baghdad office several months ago, it
was thought to have moved its operations to Salahuddin Province,
northwest of Baghdad, in the Sunni heartland. The governor there said
publicly that he was ordered to make sure he did not play host to the
station, noting that the Americans had delivered a "stern" message on
the subject. In December, Kurdish officials denied reports that the
station was operating out of a Christian neighborhood in Erbil.

The station does not have much structure or style. Grainy clips of
grisly violence, running in loops and sometimes in slow motion, are
interspersed with news bulletins featuring just two commentators - a
woman, who wraps and covers her face, and a man in a full battle
fatigues whose face is uncovered, and who appears to be about 30
years old.

They regularly accuse Iraq's Shiite-led government of being a front
for Iran. Mr. Mashhadani, the Parliamentary speaker and a Sunni, is
often called "Mashhadi" - a reference to the Iranian town of Mashhad,
Iran's holiest Shiite city.

The station also frequently offers critical coverage of the rebel
cleric Moktada al-Sadr, including broadcasting a clip that the
station says demonstrates his militia's infiltration of the Iraqi
Army. Mr. Sadr is shown sitting with aides, discussing how many
militiamen he can spare to be a part of the Iraqi Army. In the end,
he says that he will supply two divisions. The source of the video is
unclear.

In an odd twist, at the same time as the broadcasts promote attacks
against the Americans and the Shiite militias, the station's main
commentator, the man in fatigues, encourages other Shiites to join
the struggle.

In fact, the commentator, who reads his diatribes from an undisclosed
location, is himself a Shiite, according to a Baghdad couple who
identified themselves as his parents.

As the station's agenda shifts from focusing strictly on the
Americans to rallying Sunnis to prevent Shiite control of the
country, the potential of the message to stir up more bloodshed is
that much greater.

But the representative of the station seemed confident that it would
stay on the air.

"Al Zawra represents all factions of resistance against the Iranian
and American occupation," he wrote. "And it is committed to
broadcasting their messages and activities without any interference
or discrimination."

Khalid al-Ansary and Qais Mizher contributed reporting.


________________________________________________
YOU MUST clip all extraneous text before replying to a message.
Send list submissions to: Marxism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism