10.00.00 Smiling suicide bomber giving last testament, crooking finger as if clicking the detonator. COMMThis man is about to kill himself on camera.
10.00.07 Smiling bomber in car, showing gas canisters packed with explosives. Subtitle “We have nothing for you America but buttons. My gun is in my hand, the TNT in my pocket, my gas bottle by my side’
10.00.18 COMMAbu Muawiya is a suicide bomber for al-Qaeda in Iraq. He’s about to ram his car loaded with explosives into a checkpoint manned by American and Iraqi soldiers.His smile for the camera is as much a weapon of war as the explosives packed around him.
10.00.35 Long shot of car (indicated on video by red ring); massive explosion; cries of ‘Allahu Akbar’ and sobbing off camera.
10.00.40 COMMThis is the jihadi propaganda machine, designed to inspire its supporters and terrify its enemies.The video is emotional, it’s powerful and thanks to the Internet you can get it anywhere in the world.
10.00.55 Screenshots from jihadi websites Al EkhlaasClip from Chechnya There are hundreds of these videos on the Net, and more are uploaded almost every day.
10.01.03 COMMMost are from Iraq, others are from Afghanistan or Chechnya – the rebellious Muslim province in southern Russia - wherever jihadi Muslims are fighting what they see as an American-led Crusader alliance attacking Islam.
10.01.15 Glimpse of 7/7 video – just shots ripped off BBC News 24 with Arabic soundtrack COMM There have been two videos about Britain, after the 7/7 bombings in London.
10.01.23 Sequence from AQ video game “Night of Bush Capturing” COMM Al Qaeda’s even modified a video game to make a shoot-em-up in which jihadi supporters can try to capture George Bush.
10.01.31 Young people looking at books outside Damascus University, mixture of religious tomes and 1,000 best text messages for dating. COMM But who actually watches these videos? And what effect are they having on young people in the Muslim world – and here?Are these images breeding a new generation of jihadis and suicide bombers who will attack the London Underground or planes over the Atlantic?
10.01.48 TITLEJIHAD TV
10.01.58 AQ video ‘Crusader Wars part 1’ or ‘part 2’Opening creditPix of bin Laden and palsAl Qaeda’s edit of iconic imagery of 9/11Last will and testament of 9/11 hijacker with twin towers in background. COMMTo win a war, you don’t need to kill everybody on the enemy side. What you need is to break their will to fight, and inspire your own side never to surrender. That’s why propaganda has always been as important as military operations.Al Qaeda knows this. 9/11 was not just about killing Americans. It was about creating iconic images. They didn’t even need to film the images itself – it just stole its enemies’ footage and turned it into propaganda narratives like this.This is one of al Qaeda’s earliest videos celebrating the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington in 2001.You can tell how carefully it was planned. This is the will of one of the 9/11 hijackers. It was recorded months before the attack – but in such a way that the background could be changed electronically afterwards. Al Qaeda knew that if the operation succeeded, there would be some powerful images they could drop in behind him.
10.03.10 Dubai night shots in street COMMI’ve been reporting Muslim militant groups since the 1980s and have tracked jihadi propaganda on the Internet since soon after 9/11. I’ve watched dozens of hours of video from insurgents in Iraq. To get a second opinion on this mass of material, I went to Dubai to see a Saudi journalist who has an encyclopedic knowledge of jihadi videos, Faris bin Hizam.
10.03.32 FARIS BIN HIZAMSUBTITLES:Al-Qaeda and other small groups in Iraq are keen to documentall their operations whether training or attacksbecause they know that the current global battle with America is in media.
10.03.58 Screenshots of jihadi websites COMMFaris says the increasing power of the Internet has been a gift to the jihadis.There are any number of free hosting sites on the Internet which anyone can use to share video files with their friends, and that’s what the jihadis do.Their media people simply upload videos to a dozen or more different places on the internet. Then they post messages on a forum like this to tell sympathiser where to download the files. They run very little risk of being caught.
10.04.28 FARIS BIN HIZAMNow the modern way is the Internet. Someone edits the film at home, THEN BURNS IT ONTO A CD and takes it to any Internet caféWHERE HE CAN LOG ONTO CERTAIN SITES, UPLOAD THE FILM, and leave. THE ENTIRE OPERATION wouldn’t take more than five minutes. The CIA CAN SEARCH FOR AGES, but EVEN IF THEY FIND THE SPECIFIC CAFÉ WHERE THE CD WAS upLOADED, THEY CAN NEVER FIND THE PERSON…
10.05.10 Dr_papend2.divx (Latest Zawahiri video) COMMAyman Zawahiri, the number 2 man in al-Qaeda, is one of the most hunted men in the world. But aL-Qaeda can put him in front of a global audience whenever they want.
10.05.21 SUBTITLES: OVER ZAWAHIRI VIDEOThe murderer and spiller of Muslim blood, BushHas stated that he has secret prisons
10.05.29 Video of fighters in Afghanistan COMMMuslim militant groups have been producing videos since at least the 1980s – Hizbollah in Lebanon, Palestinian groups, jihadis in Bosnia, Chechnya and Afghanistan. This is Afghanistan.
10.05.43 SUBTITLE OVER AFGHAN VIDEO:This is a laserIt’s used for accurate AIMINGAT YOUR TARGET, AS YOU CAN SEE…
10.05.50 Islamic Army video sa3aGraphics + bangs / rockets / spies COMMAl Qaeda started using video soon after Osama bin Laden founded the group in the late 1990s.But it is the war in Iraq, and the spread of broadband Internet, that have turned a propaganda trickle into a torrent in the last three years.
10.06.08 COMMAll the big insurgent groups have developed their own media brands with logos and graphic effects.This is an hour-long video by an insurgent group quite separate from al Qaeda called the Islamic Army in Iraq. Part 1 covers military operations.There is another part on rockets – all sizes… from small – to giant.It ends with a chilling sequence on traitors and spies. We don’t see the men executed, but we know what’s going to happen.
10.06.56 This is the 21st century media war.
END OF PART 1
Part 2 – Who’s making jihadi videos – and who’s watching them?
10.08.00 TITLE: JIHAD TV
10.08.07 Shots of mosqueLondon demo COMMWho is actually watching all this jihadi video material?Theoretically, with the reach of the Internet, it could be people anywhere in the world – as easily here in Europe as in the Middle East.
10.08.18 Al-Hesbah front page COMMWell, one answer is us, the Western and Arab media. The major news organisations regularly trawl the jihadi sites for the latest videos. The most important jihadi website proudly shows the logos of all the media organisations which have registered to download its statements and videos.
10.08.37 London demo COMMBut the videos are also reaching some angry young Muslims right here in Britain.Radical Islamist ideology has become a badge of identity for some Muslims who feel demonised by the country they grew up in.These people are protesting against police raids and detentions under the Prevention of Terrorism laws which they feel unfairly target Muslims.
10.09.00 Rally speaker (ANJAM CHOUDRY)Over 100, 000, officially, stop-and-searches of Muslims in this country…
10.09.15 High shots showing how small demo is COMMRadicals are a small minority among Muslims in Britain. More than 4,000 people prayed at Regents Park Mosque the day we filmed this scene. But only about a hundred went on the protest.
10.09.29 Establishing shot of boys on bench COMMBut they do exist, and for some of them like Mohammed here, jihadi videos from the Internet are an important source of information and ideas.
10.09.43 Mohammad and boys on bench MOHAMMEDThe reason why they spread so quickly, is because Muslims are fed up with just hearing the same story – a thousand Muslims being killed, a thousand muslims killed in Iraq, another hundred in Afghanistan… all this news about no Americans being killed, no British being killed…so whenever we hear that there’s a video come out to show us actual footage, of an entire tank being destroyed, another humvee here… it shows us that there’s something wrong with the western propaganda that we’re being show, that we’re being fed…
10.10.11 COMMI asked Mohammed and some of his friends the young men who’d been on the protest what they thought of some jihadi videos, including this the Qaeda film video about the 7/7 bombings in London. Mohammed One of the men said he’d seen it before.
10.10.24 UPSOT BOMBING VIDEO WHERE IT ARGUES ABOUT WEST’S ATROCITIES … Who in turn, continue to oppress our mothers, children, brothers and sisters, from the east to the west… in Palestine, Afghanistan and Chechnya…
10.10.38 MOHAMMEDWhat is being shown by this video, by Al Qaeda, what they are doing, is that they are putting 7/7 into context, and every other bombing into context. At the end of the day, the Musims, yes, we don’t want to see bombing in London, none of us want that. I could have been on the tube. It could have been him on the tube. It could have been me on the bus. But in fact is that Muslims have been facing 7/7 in Iraq for every day for the last year… even since 7/7 we’re facing another 7/7, and another 9/11, in Fallujah, in Iraq, in Abu Ghreib…
Here in Britain, thousands of miles away from the front lines of Iraq or Afghanistan, jihadi videos are one of the helicopter pilot transporting young men into a world of global conflict.
ABDULLAHThe way we see it is that it removes a misconception. Because America wants to show it is a superpower which cannot be defeated and nothing will ever happen to it. However this shows the power of Allah (Subhahanu wa Taala). Even if you are in the skies, Allah will bring your planes down.
10.11.22 Zawahiri on Palestine and Egypt COMMThe jihadi groups make several distinct types of videos. The first is ideological lectures, like this one by Ayman Zawahiri of al-Qaeda. Just one man, talking to camera.
10.11.33 UPSOT Zawahiri ZAWAHIRI SUBTITLES:‘I wish to speak to you today about the Zionist Crusader war against the Islamic world…And how it penetrates every aspect of our lives…Our Palestinian brothers are under siege in Palestine, in order to force them to kneel down and surrender to the tyrant Zionist/Crusader forces…
10.11.54 Ryah alNasr COMMThe jihadis also produce propaganda documentaries, like this one called ‘Winds of Victory’ by al-Qaeda in Iraq. This is the group led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi until he was killed in an American air strike. It makes a simple point about the gap between American slogans and American actions.SUBTITLESRed letters ‘Democracy’Red letters ‘Freedom’The reality is as clear as the sun
10.12.20 Suggest use opening logo to introduce, as divider from previous filmAl Mosul COMMSome documentaries celebrate big operations, like this one by the Army of Supporters of the Prophet. It shows the detailed planning for a suicide attack on an American base in the city of Mosul.They’ve mixed their own pictures with mainstream news footage filmed inside the base, taken from news reports about the attack.
Suggest use logo as divider from previous filmAbu Anas filmIntvu with masked guerrillaShot of Abu Anas praying with boysStill of Abu Anas with greenery and waterfalls COMMOther documentaries are dedicated to glorifying jihadi heroes, martyrs. This one is about a Syrian who was close to the Qaeda leader al-Zarqawi.It interviews the martyr’s colleagues, reconstructs his last hours, and imagines him in paradise.
10.13.05 Ansar al-Sunna studio presentation with two balaclavad men COMMThe motive for many of the videos is to counter what the jihadis see as distortion by mainstream media.The Supporters of the Way of the Prophet even produced an entire alternative news bulletin, complete with studio guest… whoever he was
10.13.20 UPSOT GUEST IN STUDIOSUBTITLESAnd here are some examples of the effects of the Mujahedeen’s blessed operations, which the enemy cannot hide, and which the camera of the Mujahedeen is bringing to your screens.
10.13.38 New Shoura clips –Humvee remains burningBoys cheeringKilling of spy(EXPLAIN IN CAPTIONS) COMMThe long videos take time and effort to make. So much of the time, the insurgents simply upload short clips of their latest operations. Day in, day out the insurgents are showing their view of the war, uncensored and unfiltered by international media.
10.14.06 COMMIt’s not just the jihadis and the Sunni Muslim insurgents in Iraq who are making videos. Their enemies in Iraq’s sectarian civil war, the Shi’ite Muslim Mahdi Army are at it too. Here in a Shi’ite Muslim area of Baghdad, chants and speeches by the Mahdi Army’s leader, Muqtada Sadr, blare out from stall after stall.
10.14.27 VENDOR SUBTITLES ‘After the fall of Saddam Hussein, these CDs started to spread with of religious lectures, interviews with Sayid Moqtada al-Sadr and clashes with the Americans.’
10.14.46 Excerpt from Mahdi Army video COMMLike all propaganda, the material is selective. The Mahdi Army shows only their operations against the Americans, not against fellow Iraqis.
10.15.06 Baghdad – young men buying CDs COMMMany of the buyers in this market in Baghdad are just teenagers. Abbas is 16.
10.15.13 SOUNDBITE FROM MAHDI ARMY CD BUYER ABBAS - SUBTITLES‘I love Sayid Moqtada and I love the Army’Q What do they mean to you?ABBASThey mean a lot. If all I could do was watch THE VIDEOS, my life would be worthwhile.
10.15.22 MAN IN BLUE SHIRT SUBTITLESMUHANNAD, 24“These acts excite me. I love the words, and I feel it pushes me to jihad, and to resist.’
10.15.30 Sniper of FallujaSniper shootsSniper shoots again COMMMany of the videos use extreme violence to shock and grip their audience. The imagery of this video comes straight from a video game. But the shooting is real.
10.15.50 JUBA 2Sniper comes in, sits downSniper marks day’s kills on a chart COMMAnother Iraqi group, the Islamic Army has made two special videos about its sniper unit. This is the newest.Sniper violence is ideal for propaganda because it so clearly targets American soldiers, not Iraqi civilians.
10.16.07 COMMThe most violent videos are designed simply to strike terror into the jihadi’s enemies, and thrill their supporters.
10.16.16 Islamic Army – shooting of helicopter crewman This video, also by the Islamic Army in Iraq conveys utter contempt for a defeated enemy.Lyubomir Kostov, the Bulgarian pilot of a helicopter carrying security contractors, survived being shot down. The fighters told him to run, and then shot him dead.
10.16.42 Abu Bukhary executions COMMThe most extreme videos, and the most notorious around the world, are the beheadings of prisoners. Some of these have been Westerners held hostage, most have been Iraqis serving in the security forces.I can’t watch these in their original form and I won’t impose them on you. But these stills are enough to demonstrate that these are made-for-video events.The death sentence could be carried out much more easily with a bullet. The sole purpose of the butcher’s knife is to create a more terrifying image on video.
10.17.20 Faris bin Hizam setup shots – fingers on keyboard, eye COMMThe beheading videos were pioneered by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who used them to cement his position as the most feared jihadi commander in Iraq.But Faris bin Hizam, reporting on the videos from Dubai, says they were opposed by Osama bin Laden and Ayman Zawahiri, who believed they would alienate Muslim supporters.
10.17.40 FARIS BIN HIZAMSUBTITLESThere are divisions. There are people who support Zarqawi in his media approachTo spread horror to its utmost extent, and there are others who oppose itBecause they are from school of Bin Laden and Zawahiri.We will find that Bin Ladin’s school is more clever in terms of marketing and delivering their images and information.
10.18.14 Boys on bench viewing helicopter video. COMMHere in Britain, thousands of miles away from the front lines, jihadi videos like this one of the helicopter pilot transport young men into the world of the jihad.
10.18.27 ABDULLAHThe way we see it is that it removes a misconception. Because America wants to show it is a superpower which cannot be defeated and nothing will ever happen to it. However this shows the power of Allah (Subhahanu wa Taala). Even if you are in the skies, Allah will bring your planes down.
10.18.45 MOHAMMEDI mean, obviously I am not going to go out and behead anybody. But the fact that I saw the video, I know that there is a war going on It is not just something far away and I don’t hear about it. There are people being killed, there’s blood being spilled. We need to stop the cycle of bloodshed by removing the troops from iraq.
10.19.04 Islamic army video sequences of grenade throwers COMMThe insurgent groups in Iraq are putting great effort into filming their operations.Here the Islamic Army has placed a cameraman in a shop across the road from a planned attack.
10.19.22 Shoura Council video of attack on police station COMMThe cameramen are as close to the front line as the fighters – this is an attack on an Iraqi police station by the Mujahedeen Shoura Council, the alliance of which al Qaeda in Iraq is now part.
10.19.38 COMMThe videos are edited and uploaded using tools anyone with a computer might recognise.
10.19.43 Fuad footage COMMWe obtained this footage of an anonymous jihadi video producer somewhere in the Middle East. He’s involved with the Global Islamic Media Front, a network of media producers who compile and distribute material from many different jihadi groups – using standard Microsoft software made in the USA.
10.20.02 VIDEO PRODUCER SUBTITLESNow we move to the editing stage. We use the programme “Windows Movie Maker”, which is a specialized programme for making films. Now we move the logo, like this, then we choose the title which is “Al Qaeda in the Land of the Two Rivers”.After that we choose the video files of the operations we want. Now we can see scenes of the operations.
10.20.55 FARIS BIN HIZAM SUBTITLESSUGGEST: AT FIRST, WE THOUGHT THESE PEOPLE WERE WORKING for TV CHANNELS… (In the beginning there was talk of whether these people were working in TV channels.)In fact they don’t. The people who were producing films for al-Qaeda in Saudi Arabia, for example, were young men in their twenties, and we know that the young generation are fond of the new technology and computers, from PlayStation to the most sophisticated computers.
10.21.21 Fuad footage COMMThe jihadis take the process very seriously.There’s a chain of command and the finished video is not uploaded until it’s been checked and approved.
10.21.31 VIDEO PRODUCER SUBTITLESThe purpose of this work is to inspire the young men, the main aim is to show the Mujahedeen as God sees them, and not as the media distorts them. That’s what we are doing here.
10.21.53 COMMSo the cheap, easily available technology most people are using to make and share their holiday videos is being used as a weapon in a war.
10.22.05 Blackburn GVs COMMHere in Britain, jihadi videos have started to leak into popular culture. They’re swapped by email, or between mobile phones on bluetooth wireless connections. And they’re spreading more widely on the internet.
10.22.17 Abu Mousa looking at his video collection Abu Moussa in Blackburn in Lancashire has an impressive collection. He once followed Abu Hamza, the preacher at Finsbury Park mosque in London. No longer, since Abu Hamza is now serving a seven-year sentence for sermons which were judged to be soliciting murder.
10.22.34 ABU MOUSSAWhat’s happening is that people are posting these on mainstream sites like You Tube, and are watching it through You Tube now, so the audiences get wider, and you see another face of that war.
10.22.47 YouTube screenshotsPLEASE REVERSE ORDER OF CLIPS – SECOND ONE IS THE SHOURA COUNCIL CLIP WHICH WE TALK ABOUT FIRST COMMHe’s right.It took me only minutes to find this video by the Mujahedeen Shoura Council in Iraq on YouTube.The sites are taking down jihadi videos as quickly as they find them, but they don’t always find them and more are being uploaded almost every day. This one had been viewed about 2,500 times in 10 weeks.
10.23.12 Abou Moussa in shopDirty Kuffar COMMSome British Muslims are even making their own videos – Abu Moussa had this one on his phone.The video’s been around for a while now but it was a big hit when it first came out, a piece of very British rap which directly copies the imagery of jihadi videos. Kuffar means ‘infidels’.
10.23.30 Dirty Kuffar UPSOT DIRTY KUFFAR
10.23.48 COMMWhen the British government starts talking about creating podcasts to reach alienated young Muslims, this is what it’s competing against.
10.23.56 MORE DIRTY KUFFAR
END OF PART 2
Part 3 – From Al-Arabiya to Al-Manar
10.25.00 Shopping Mall in DubaiMobile phone stallInternet café scene COMMSome young British Muslims are watching jihadi videos. But what about in the Arab world, where people are directly affected by the wars that feature in the videos? Are millions of people downloading jihadi propaganda?It’s easy to imagine that people might be attracted to the jihadi view of the world. They are bombarded by satellite television showing images of grief and death.
10.25.31 ARCHIVEAL MANAR NEWS IMAGES COMMEvery day the top stories on Arab television news are about suffering in Iraq, Palestine, Lebanon, Afghanistan, Kashmir – most of it blamed one way or another on America, Israel and Britain.
10.25.44 AL JAZEERA ARCHIVE George Bush giving speechJazeera news report on Qana COMMThis is al-Jazeera, the granddaddy of mainstream Arab satellite channels, reporting an Israeli air strike on the village of Qana in south Lebanon this summer.
10.25.57 AL ARABIYA ARVHICE Al Arabiya package on Israeli shelling of beach in Gaza, killing whole family. COMMHere is al Arabiya, the other big Arab satellite channel, on Israeli shelling of a beach in the Gaza Strip, killing 7 members of one family and leaving a little girl bereft.
10.26.08 AL ARABIYA ARCHIVE AL-ARABIYA REPORTER V/OSUBTITLES“Thousands of Palestinians turned out to mourn dozens of martyrs, including 7 from one family, in scenes of sadness, anger and calls for revenge.
10.26.18 AL ARABIYA ARCHIVEAl-Arabiya programme (World after 9/11) on fifth anniversary of 9/11 (intercut programme itself with behind the scenes shots… COMMSome Arab media are worried about the impact of the continual images of death and suffering.
10.26.27 END OF ARCHIVE – ACTUALITY, ARABIYA NEWSROOM COMMAl Arabiya is based in Dubai and owned by liberal Saudis.The staff would easily fit into a Western newsroom. In fact, many of them have done.
10.26.38 Upsot on woman producer (Hanadi)SUBTITLES‘Can we please put the last question about the prisoners…Ask about Arab governments holding prisoners in their jails. Not only in Guantanamo.
10.26.50 Executive Editor Nabil Khatib in editorial meeting COMMThere’s still no escape from the Middle East news agenda of violence and blood. Today the editors are debating whether Bin Laden or Abu Musab Al Zarqawi is more bloody.
10.27.02 Surreal argument in editorial meeting UPSOT on exchange between Tarek and Helen al-HajSUBTITLESTAREK VOICE OFF CAMERA‘Yes, I agree, but there weren’t any beheadings’TAREK IN VISION‘Yes, the way of doing it. It’s more…‘It’s more thirsty for blood than killing people. It’s just more provoking’MAN VOICE OFF CAMERA‘Because Al Qaeda kills Muslims, Zarqawi kills Muslims…HELEN ‘What I mean is that the difference in means doesn’t make it less bloody.‘In the end, they’re both bloody. Both approaches are bloody.’
10.27.32 Nabil Khatib during meetingSetup of Nabil sitting in edit room pushing tape into machine. COMMIn the end, they still couldn’t agree.The Executive Editor, Nabil Khatib, is passionate about not showing too much blood and horror on the screen.During the Lebanon war, Al Arabiya had exclusive footage of the aftermath of an Israeli commando raid near Baalbekin which civilians hiding in an orchard had been cut to pieces by Israeli machine gun fire. Nabil refused to run most of the pictures.
10.27.58 AL ARABIYA ARCHIVEGruesome rushesAL ARABIYA ARCHIVE NABIL KHATIBExecutive Editor, al ArabiyaWe’re talking about some50 minutes of rushes of horrible scenes, of people showing parts of the bodies of their beloved who used to be their beloved yesterday and now are just parts of bodies.
10.28.18 Cut to Nabil unable to watch COMMNabil still can’t watch the original videotapes.
10.28.25 AL ARABIYA ARCHIVEArabiya final edit of Baalbek story COMMThis was the edit Nabil finally approved. It’s still difficult to watch.
10.28.30 AL ARABIYA ARCHIVE UPSOT REPORTER V/O ‘This is what remains of the men of this town – fragments of bodies which we cannot show because the images are too disturbing
10.28.37 AL ARABIYA ARCHIVEMORE OF THE FINAL EDIT OF BAALBACK STORY NABIL KHATIB V/OI have a kid who is three years and half years old. She knows Lebanon, she understands that her grandmother is living in Lebanon.I don’t want her to learn that there is somebody bad who broke your beloved people’s house; she’ll start hating people on this basis. That’s how you see generations after generations of people growing up on hatred
10.29.05 AL JAZEERA ARCHIVEJazeera programme ‘Opposite Direction’ on tape recorded off TV COMMBut it is not just the images. Debate in the studio in the Arab world often starts at a point which in Europe, let alone America, would already be off the chart.On this Jazeera programme called Opposite Direction, the liberal voice, a Palestinian academic called Ahmad Abu Matar, still supports Palestinian and Hizbollah attacks on Israelis, and Iraqi attacks on American soldiers. He says they’re acting in self-defence. But his opponent, the Moroccan writer Khnata Banouna, defends Osama bin Laden’s campaign of killing Americans anywhere in the world.
10.29.40 AL JAZEERA ARCHIVE Khnata BANOUNA SUBTITLE‘There is absolutely no justification for saying that Bin Laden and the other Mujahedeen have no right to carry on their jihad. How are we supposed to resist this tyrant who is trying to obliterate us?And let America and Israel know that we are not the Red Indians we have firm religious and cultural and historical bases and they will not make Red Indians of us.AHMAD ABU MATAR SUBTITLE‘I am against the theft of nations.I am against the terrorism being practiced against Palestinians, Lebanese and Iraqis.But I will not use terrorism in return.”
10.30.26 AL JAZEERA ARCHIVE COMMThe programme presenter, Faycal Qassem, challenges Banouna, saying the Western reaction to al-Qaeda’s attacks has been to sacrifice civil liberties. Is this anything Muslims can be proud of?
10.30.40 AL JAZEERA ARCHIVE BANOUNA SUBTITLESNo reasonable person could be proud. but they have stolen from us, slaughtered us, humiliated us, starved usand tried to put us on the lowest rung of humanity. Is it not our right to defend ourselves? So this Jihadi action is just a graze on the back of this enormous dinosaur.
10.31.10 Workers dormitory set-up, showing that these are bachelor workers, not well off.
10.31.13 Egyptian workers watching TV in dormitory COMMThe language of victimhood and injustice hits home with a mass of young working class Arabs.These Egyptian guest workers I met in Dubai had the Muslim profession of faith written in marker pen across their dormitory door. Religion, presented by charismatic preachers on satellite television, is what shapes their view of the world.
10.31.35 COMMBut they still make a strong distinction between Palestinians or Iraqis or Lebanese fighting to defend their land, and blowing up tube trains in London. This is Ali from Alexandria.
10.31.46 ALI SUBTITLESIf someone attacks you in your land you wouldn’t accept it.Islam gives us rights to defend ourselves when we are attacked,but some people have violated or misunderstood the religion. They are terrorists and don’t belong to our religion in any way.
10.32.05 Cutaways, view from balcony COMMThe men do believe that the West has been out to get them since colonial times when Britain and France ruled most of the Middle East. And they are so suspicious of America that they really believe the CIA was responsible for 9/11. This is Hussam from Cairo.
10.32.21 Interviews – men gathered around Hussam HUSSAM SUBTITLES “I think that Bin Ladin and Zawahiri are a US product, and couldn’t have organised 9/11. Q – What do you mean, that someone was behind them?HUSSAMI mean that it was all done by the American Intelligence. Nasir will tell you why.
10.32.40 NASIR SUBTITLES“They wanted to distort the image of Islam and the world. The whole aim was to blame Muslims for 9/11Q: why did they want to distort the image of Islam?NASIRSo they can colonise everywhere, and CALL you a TERRORIST WHEN YOU TRY TO DEFEND yOUR COUNTRY.
10.33.02 COMMThese Egyptians use email at an internet café in a nearby shopping mall. But they say they haven’t watched any jihadi videos.
10.33.11 Faris bin Hizam fingers on keyboard / over shoulder at screen COMMAnd that’s the pattern I found more widely. The evidence is that relatively few people, even in an Arab world seething with anti-Western hostility, actively go looking for jihadi videos.
10.33.24 FARIS BIN HIZAMSUBTITLESThe number is small in general because these websites are password protected.You must subscribe and be approved and only then you can ENTER THE SITE.For example, al-Hesbah which is in the top ten Jihadi WEBSITES, tells you at the BOTTOM OF THE screen that there are 400 PEOPLE logged in, and 1,800 HAVE VISITED THE SITE TODAY.I can’t remember a day when there were more than 2000 VISITORS.
10.34.03 DamascusFlags in street, old city sceneDamascus Gvs – new part of city with mountain behindBooks outside university COMMI went to Syria, which George Bush says it supports terrorism and the axis of evil. Outside Damascus University, there are plenty of books on sale supporting Hizbollah’s fight against Israel, and others by charismatic Muslim preachers. But there are also volumes of 1,000 best romantic text messages.
10.34.30 GVs Damascus at night COMMThe state in Syria controls local television and newspapers, and dissidents are hauled off to jail. But young people do have access to uncensored satellite channels such as Al Arabiya, Al Jazeera and Hizbollah’s station, Al-Manar. And they can get on the Internet.
Setup of Golan students COMMYoung Syrians are conscious of the power of the television images they are watching. This group, for instance, disagreed about how much of the horror of the war should be shown on mainstream news bulletins, especially if children might be watching.
10.35.01 A man with a black sleeve less T shirt speaking SUBTITLE“Why not watch such images? Yes children can be warned but for adults why not? This is reality and happening on the ground. It’s better to SHOW reality. The era of covering up in 60s and 70s and 80s is over.
10.35.23 NARGIS SUBTITLEI think it’s wrong. Children should know THERE’S A WAR AND PEOPLE ARE DYING, BUT THEY DON’T NEED TO SEE DISTURBING IMAGES WHICH MAY AFFECT THEM PSYCHOLOGICALLY IN THE FUTURE
10.35.42 Students in amphitheatre COMMA few of them have seen some jihadi videos from the internet, but they don’t rate them.
10.35.47 Q - What sort of things have you seen?NIHAD BRAIDMedical studentBombers, suicide bombers. I don’t agree with that. It’s scary, very scary. Beheading people, cutting heads! It’s something very scary.
10.36.06 Damascus internet café COMMThe truth is when young Syrians go to the Internet café, the most popular application is not extreme politics but video dating.
10.36.15 Gvs Beirut big advertising hoardings SUBTITLE“The Invincible Army” (poster of weeping Israeli soldier)SUBTITLE“The graveyard of the aggressors” (posters of coffins draped in Israeli flags) COMMThere is one other type of media in the Arab world – television that directly serves political parties, and even private armies.
10.36.27 AL MANAR ARCHIVEManar TV stingManar archive martyr’s promo film COMMAl-Manar is the satellite channel of Hizbollah, a Lebanese religious-political movement with more military power than the government. The channel unashamedly glorifies war against Israel.Hizbollah has just fought, and in its view defeated, Israel in a month of fighting this summer.Al-Manar is available across the Middle East on satellite. Its stars are the mothers of men killed in battle.
10.37.01 AL MANAR ARCHIVE UPSOT PROMO VIDEOMOTHER OF MARTYRI have not an ounce of regret, because I thank GodI have made myself proud, I have raised my dignity, and my faith is deeper because of his martyrdom. Because this is honour, dignity and pride for me, and for the whole Arab and Islamic world.
10.37.20 GV dramatic hole in ground COMMAl Manar’s message is so powerful that during this summer’s war Israel tried to blast the station from the face of the earth. Ali Hashem is a reporter for the channel. This was his office.
10.37.38 ALI HASHEMAl Manar reporterThis was out News Room before. Q - “were people in the building it was hit?”AliAs I knew, yes, we had 28 people inside the building; reporters, editors, and cameramen, technicians. The newsroom was just one storey under this. The guys were there, they escaped deathQ- so how did Al manar keep broadcasting?AliThat’s the big secret! We just shifted from A to B - in case plan B was revealed or bombarded than plan C was going to be on the right track.Q – How long were you off air?Ali:Two or three minutes, that’s all.
10.38.27 AL MANAR ARCHIVENEWS COMMThe first public appearance after the war by Hizbollah’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, was a made-for-TV event.
10.38.37 AL MANAR ARCHIVEAl Manar high shots of rally Ali Hashem stand-upSUBTITLE‘From the victory parade ground, this is Ali Hashem for Al Manar TV.’
AL MANAR ARCHIVE COMMAl Manar mounted a day-long outside broadcast with multiple cameras.
10.38.50 OTN Footage of Nasrallah victory speech Nasrallah Speech SUBTITLESWe have to say that this was an American war in its brutality, in its weaponry, and in its planning
10.39.05 COMMHizbollah’s followers – that is, al-Manar’s viewers, are passionate about the movement.
10.39.11 Ali Tahseen Hiader, a young man wearing a yellow T shirt and white hat speaking Ali Tahseen Haider SUBTITLE“We came here today to obey Sayid Hassan’s call. We do whatever he wants. We came for the sake of the martyrswho died defending the country and fought the infidel Jews.
10.39.30 A woman called Muntaha, wearing a black rob and red hat speaking WOMAN IN BLACK SCARFSUBTITLE…the American armies, the Israeli armies…I spit on them. Bush is a dog.
10.39.40 Gvs Internet café in southern suburbs of Beirut, children playing in screen COMMChildren in the Shi’ite Muslim suburbs of Beirut grow up watching al-Manar. They expect to join Hizbollah’s army and fight Israel. Hizbollah runs a multi-platform propaganda machine. It has even produced a video game for them to practice killing Israelis.
10.39.58 Sequence from video game ‘Special Force’ HUSSEIN AMMAR OFF CAMERASUBTITLEThe idea is to show kids how the resistance penetrates the enemy positions (HUSSEIN IN VISION)and show them how Hizbollah hunts down terrorists and who Hizbollah is and what they doIt makes them want to JOIN THE RESISTANCE when they grow up to do it for real with the Hizbollah, and join in with the boys to wipe out the terrorists.
10.40.42 Man making martyrdom poster on PC COMMWar against Israel is part of the culture here. Hussein’s Dad is tucked in a corner making a martyrdom poster of his brother-in-law. He was killed fighting the Israelis in the summer.
10.40.53 ABU HUSSEINSUBTITLEThis will be a poster to put up next to the martyr’s house.It will be 1.5 by 2.5 metres. Q- where can you get it printed?There are lots of places that print these big posters. Any number of places.
10.41.15 Setup Mohammed Ammar COMMHussein’s little brother Mohammed likes all the war games.
10.41.20 Intvu Mohammed Ammar MOHAMMED AMMARSUBTITLEI like it because it makes you feel that you are building a state. You are the leader and you are everything Q- why do you like war games? You already live in war, wouldn’t it better to play something more peaceful? MOHAMMED AMMARSUBTITLEIt’s so that when we grow up, we would have an idea of what happensand how we should go forward and volunteer.
END OF PART 3
Part 4 – Impact
10.43.00 Setup of Nadim Abdel-razak (WP11 – Tripoli, Lebanon)Legless young man – avoid if possible any of the touching pix of his kittens & him praying – keep that for the end COMMTelevision pictures do make some people go to war.Nadim Abdel-Razak went to fight what he believed was a jihad against the Americans when they invaded Iraq in 2003. He left his village in northern Lebanon and joined other volunteers who crossed into Iraq from Syria.
10.43.21 NADIM ABDEL-RAZAKSUBTITLEWhen I left home, it was when we heard that the US forces wanted to occupy Iraq. We were watching Al Jazeera. What we saw was an Arabic Islamic country being attackedhouses destroyed, people slaughtered, air strikes,Innocent people killed.Our Jihad was to protect our religion, our honour, our land, our integrity, and our freedom. This is the true Jihad – to fight to defend everything which man recognises as honor and dignity.
10.44.17 More Nadim COMMIt was reality, as seen on mainstream TV, and not jihadi videos on the internet which provoked Nadim to fight. If America hadn’t invaded Iraq, he’d have stayed at home, and he’d still have both his legs.
10.44.33 Behind the scenes at Bees Way, setup of Kinda COMMIf war on television is driving some adult Arabs to extremes, imagine what it’s doing to the minds of children.In Syria, they even put war on children’s programmes.
Sequences of Bees Way regular programme going out – scene in gallery, sign-language girl at work, children guests sitting on coloured bench in studio, lots of simpering and smiling. COMMKinda Nassli’s show, ‘Bees’ Way’, on Syria’s state-run satellite station is normally a bit syrupy by European standards.But when war broke out between Israel and Hizbollah, Kinda devoted two special programmes to it.
10.45.01 SYRIA TV ARCHIVEOpening credit sequenceSUBTITLE:‘THE RAINS OF ISRAEL’ COMMShe showed pictures of death and destruction. Children recited poems in praise of the Hizbollah leader, Hassan Nasrallah.
10.45.16 SYRIA TV ARCHIVEKinda presenting Kinda in black T-shirt KINDA NASSLISUBTITLEGreetings to the children of Srifa and Marwaheen, of Maroun al-Ras and Bint Jbeil, to all the children of Lebanon, Palestine and Iraq, to all Arab children who are bleeding, congratulations on martyrdom on the altar of freedom. May your hearts be red stars shining in the long black night.
10.45.35 SYRIA TV ARCHIVEVT played into programme COMMKinda played true life stories recorded by children fleeing Lebanon.
10.45.40 SYRIA TV ARCHIVE The Child’s voice: SUBTITLE“I saw a man, his head was in one place and his body in another. Each part of him in a different corner.This is when we were driving hereI was afraid I’d become like him.
10.45.58 SYRIA TV ARCHIVEphotos of Israeli kids signing artillery shells to fire at Lebanon. COMMShe showed a notorious photo of Israeli children signing shells to be fired on Lebanon and asked for children in the studio to react.
10.46.07 SYRIA TV ARCHIVE ALAASUBTITLE“I want Hassan Nasrallah to strike the Israeli children, so they feel what we suffer. They never feel guilty when they kill those children. So I ask Nasrallah to kill their children, civilians as well as military so they would feel how we, Arabs, are suffering”
10.46.33 COMMKinda makes no apologies for what she showed.
10.46.38 SYRIA TV ARCHIVE IMAGESCUT TO KINDA INTERVIEW IN STUDIO SYRIA TV ARCHIVEShots of airplane firing missile, port, etc KINDA NASSLISyrian children’s presenter When the war in Lebanon happened, the children themselves demanded that we talk about it on television. We didn’t force them to share the war with us. I CAN’T DESCRIBE WHAT IT’S LIKE TO HEAR THE REAL-LIFE STORIES THEY TOLD US,IN SIMPLE CHILDISH TERMS, DESCRIBING ROCKET ATTACKS AND BOMBARDMENT OF HOMES , (The real-life stories they told us, you can’t believe how a child could be telling you in simple childish words stories about missiles or bombardment of homes, seeing their relatives – or let’s hope not their relatives the – but seeing bodies of martyrs which were pulled out from under the rubble.)All this definitely created a particular feeling emotion for children, and we couldn’t possibly ignore it.
10.47.22 Gvs Damascus streets – old city Setup of kids in picnic area (doesn’t matter if they’re shuffling into place; maybe include couple of close-ups of faces.) COMMThe sad fact is, a whole generation of young Muslims is growing up with its view of the world shaped by images of a new wave of wars - 9/11 and the War on Terror, America’s wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, six years of new Israeli-Palestinian violence, the latest war in Lebanon. These Syrian children don’t need to watch jihadi videos to be what our governments might call “radicalised”. They just have to watch the evening news with their parents.
10.47.55 Kid invtus WAELSUBTITLEI watched Al Jazeera, Al Arabiya, Al Manar and Syria TVI saw destroyed houses, and children buried under themTheir toys were everywhere. I saw dead people cut in pieces, some without hands some without feet.
10.48.15 MARAMSUBTITLEWe can learn more and study more, so we can make weapons which we can use to defend ourselves if they invade us
10.48.26 KARIMSUBTITLEI was very sad for the kids of Lebanon who were being killed and bombed and chopped to bits…I was sad for Lebanon but I was also happy to see the Islamic Resistance destroying Israel…
10.48.44 Reprise faces of people we’ve met COMMWhat hit me travelling to make this film was not how many young people I found watching jihadi videos, but how few.
Lebanese kid playing videogameLebanese child off Syrian TVReprise images of workers’ dormitory in DubaiNadim with kittens COMMIf you grow up watching war on television every dayIf many of the voices you hear reinforce the belief that the West is an enemy of Arabs and MuslimsThen what you see and hear might well drive you to fight an invading foreign army.But it does not mean that you automatically become a naïve consumer of al-Qaeda’s internet propaganda.
10.49.19 NADIMSUBTITLEI feel I want to take revenge on America when I watch the television and see what it is doing, what it is doing to the religion of IslamI don’t want any revenge for the loss of my legs – my legs are gone, there is nothing I can do about that I just want to defend the religion of Mohammad.These Muslim lands are our lands. They are not America’s or Israel’s. They are ours.
10.49.49 Nadim is watching the videos on the laptop. COMMNadim Abdel-Razak represents something about where the heart of the Arab and maybe Muslim world is now. A young man willing to sacrifice his life to fight against what he sees as Western assaults on his nation and his religion.But he has not lost his humanity. When we asked what he thought of a jihadi beheading video, he sat and cried.
END OF PART 4
CREDITS
Production Co-ordinator
Btihaj Ajana
Archive Researchers
Matthew Sanger
Khouloud El Gamal
Archive courtesy of
Al–Arabiya
Al–Jazeera Network
Al–Manar (Lebanese Media Group)
Syria TV
Music
Cookbook DIY by Fun-Da-Mental
Ghazi Abdel Baki
La Chambre
The New Government
Researchers
Farah Dakhlallah
Farzana Fiaz
Additional Camera
Ali Gamloush
Mohamed Dakroub
Masood Khan
Afi Khan
Hamlet Sabah-Rhemma
Camera
Richard Malone
Sound Recordist
Grant Lawson
Production Manager
Claire Barry
Assistant Producer
Zeina Aboul Hosn
Dubbing Mixer
Scott Wilkinson
Online Editor
Michael Peatfield
Offline Editor
Bernard Lyall
Executive Producer
Cassian Harrison
Producer
Huda Ali
Reported, Produced and Directed by
Paul Eedle
10.00.07 Smiling bomber in car, showing gas canisters packed with explosives. Subtitle “We have nothing for you America but buttons. My gun is in my hand, the TNT in my pocket, my gas bottle by my side’
10.00.18 COMMAbu Muawiya is a suicide bomber for al-Qaeda in Iraq. He’s about to ram his car loaded with explosives into a checkpoint manned by American and Iraqi soldiers.His smile for the camera is as much a weapon of war as the explosives packed around him.
10.00.35 Long shot of car (indicated on video by red ring); massive explosion; cries of ‘Allahu Akbar’ and sobbing off camera.
10.00.40 COMMThis is the jihadi propaganda machine, designed to inspire its supporters and terrify its enemies.The video is emotional, it’s powerful and thanks to the Internet you can get it anywhere in the world.
10.00.55 Screenshots from jihadi websites Al EkhlaasClip from Chechnya There are hundreds of these videos on the Net, and more are uploaded almost every day.
10.01.03 COMMMost are from Iraq, others are from Afghanistan or Chechnya – the rebellious Muslim province in southern Russia - wherever jihadi Muslims are fighting what they see as an American-led Crusader alliance attacking Islam.
10.01.15 Glimpse of 7/7 video – just shots ripped off BBC News 24 with Arabic soundtrack COMM There have been two videos about Britain, after the 7/7 bombings in London.
10.01.23 Sequence from AQ video game “Night of Bush Capturing” COMM Al Qaeda’s even modified a video game to make a shoot-em-up in which jihadi supporters can try to capture George Bush.
10.01.31 Young people looking at books outside Damascus University, mixture of religious tomes and 1,000 best text messages for dating. COMM But who actually watches these videos? And what effect are they having on young people in the Muslim world – and here?Are these images breeding a new generation of jihadis and suicide bombers who will attack the London Underground or planes over the Atlantic?
10.01.48 TITLEJIHAD TV
10.01.58 AQ video ‘Crusader Wars part 1’ or ‘part 2’Opening creditPix of bin Laden and palsAl Qaeda’s edit of iconic imagery of 9/11Last will and testament of 9/11 hijacker with twin towers in background. COMMTo win a war, you don’t need to kill everybody on the enemy side. What you need is to break their will to fight, and inspire your own side never to surrender. That’s why propaganda has always been as important as military operations.Al Qaeda knows this. 9/11 was not just about killing Americans. It was about creating iconic images. They didn’t even need to film the images itself – it just stole its enemies’ footage and turned it into propaganda narratives like this.This is one of al Qaeda’s earliest videos celebrating the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington in 2001.You can tell how carefully it was planned. This is the will of one of the 9/11 hijackers. It was recorded months before the attack – but in such a way that the background could be changed electronically afterwards. Al Qaeda knew that if the operation succeeded, there would be some powerful images they could drop in behind him.
10.03.10 Dubai night shots in street COMMI’ve been reporting Muslim militant groups since the 1980s and have tracked jihadi propaganda on the Internet since soon after 9/11. I’ve watched dozens of hours of video from insurgents in Iraq. To get a second opinion on this mass of material, I went to Dubai to see a Saudi journalist who has an encyclopedic knowledge of jihadi videos, Faris bin Hizam.
10.03.32 FARIS BIN HIZAMSUBTITLES:Al-Qaeda and other small groups in Iraq are keen to documentall their operations whether training or attacksbecause they know that the current global battle with America is in media.
10.03.58 Screenshots of jihadi websites COMMFaris says the increasing power of the Internet has been a gift to the jihadis.There are any number of free hosting sites on the Internet which anyone can use to share video files with their friends, and that’s what the jihadis do.Their media people simply upload videos to a dozen or more different places on the internet. Then they post messages on a forum like this to tell sympathiser where to download the files. They run very little risk of being caught.
10.04.28 FARIS BIN HIZAMNow the modern way is the Internet. Someone edits the film at home, THEN BURNS IT ONTO A CD and takes it to any Internet caféWHERE HE CAN LOG ONTO CERTAIN SITES, UPLOAD THE FILM, and leave. THE ENTIRE OPERATION wouldn’t take more than five minutes. The CIA CAN SEARCH FOR AGES, but EVEN IF THEY FIND THE SPECIFIC CAFÉ WHERE THE CD WAS upLOADED, THEY CAN NEVER FIND THE PERSON…
10.05.10 Dr_papend2.divx (Latest Zawahiri video) COMMAyman Zawahiri, the number 2 man in al-Qaeda, is one of the most hunted men in the world. But aL-Qaeda can put him in front of a global audience whenever they want.
10.05.21 SUBTITLES: OVER ZAWAHIRI VIDEOThe murderer and spiller of Muslim blood, BushHas stated that he has secret prisons
10.05.29 Video of fighters in Afghanistan COMMMuslim militant groups have been producing videos since at least the 1980s – Hizbollah in Lebanon, Palestinian groups, jihadis in Bosnia, Chechnya and Afghanistan. This is Afghanistan.
10.05.43 SUBTITLE OVER AFGHAN VIDEO:This is a laserIt’s used for accurate AIMINGAT YOUR TARGET, AS YOU CAN SEE…
10.05.50 Islamic Army video sa3aGraphics + bangs / rockets / spies COMMAl Qaeda started using video soon after Osama bin Laden founded the group in the late 1990s.But it is the war in Iraq, and the spread of broadband Internet, that have turned a propaganda trickle into a torrent in the last three years.
10.06.08 COMMAll the big insurgent groups have developed their own media brands with logos and graphic effects.This is an hour-long video by an insurgent group quite separate from al Qaeda called the Islamic Army in Iraq. Part 1 covers military operations.There is another part on rockets – all sizes… from small – to giant.It ends with a chilling sequence on traitors and spies. We don’t see the men executed, but we know what’s going to happen.
10.06.56 This is the 21st century media war.
END OF PART 1
Part 2 – Who’s making jihadi videos – and who’s watching them?
10.08.00 TITLE: JIHAD TV
10.08.07 Shots of mosqueLondon demo COMMWho is actually watching all this jihadi video material?Theoretically, with the reach of the Internet, it could be people anywhere in the world – as easily here in Europe as in the Middle East.
10.08.18 Al-Hesbah front page COMMWell, one answer is us, the Western and Arab media. The major news organisations regularly trawl the jihadi sites for the latest videos. The most important jihadi website proudly shows the logos of all the media organisations which have registered to download its statements and videos.
10.08.37 London demo COMMBut the videos are also reaching some angry young Muslims right here in Britain.Radical Islamist ideology has become a badge of identity for some Muslims who feel demonised by the country they grew up in.These people are protesting against police raids and detentions under the Prevention of Terrorism laws which they feel unfairly target Muslims.
10.09.00 Rally speaker (ANJAM CHOUDRY)Over 100, 000, officially, stop-and-searches of Muslims in this country…
10.09.15 High shots showing how small demo is COMMRadicals are a small minority among Muslims in Britain. More than 4,000 people prayed at Regents Park Mosque the day we filmed this scene. But only about a hundred went on the protest.
10.09.29 Establishing shot of boys on bench COMMBut they do exist, and for some of them like Mohammed here, jihadi videos from the Internet are an important source of information and ideas.
10.09.43 Mohammad and boys on bench MOHAMMEDThe reason why they spread so quickly, is because Muslims are fed up with just hearing the same story – a thousand Muslims being killed, a thousand muslims killed in Iraq, another hundred in Afghanistan… all this news about no Americans being killed, no British being killed…so whenever we hear that there’s a video come out to show us actual footage, of an entire tank being destroyed, another humvee here… it shows us that there’s something wrong with the western propaganda that we’re being show, that we’re being fed…
10.10.11 COMMI asked Mohammed and some of his friends the young men who’d been on the protest what they thought of some jihadi videos, including this the Qaeda film video about the 7/7 bombings in London. Mohammed One of the men said he’d seen it before.
10.10.24 UPSOT BOMBING VIDEO WHERE IT ARGUES ABOUT WEST’S ATROCITIES … Who in turn, continue to oppress our mothers, children, brothers and sisters, from the east to the west… in Palestine, Afghanistan and Chechnya…
10.10.38 MOHAMMEDWhat is being shown by this video, by Al Qaeda, what they are doing, is that they are putting 7/7 into context, and every other bombing into context. At the end of the day, the Musims, yes, we don’t want to see bombing in London, none of us want that. I could have been on the tube. It could have been him on the tube. It could have been me on the bus. But in fact is that Muslims have been facing 7/7 in Iraq for every day for the last year… even since 7/7 we’re facing another 7/7, and another 9/11, in Fallujah, in Iraq, in Abu Ghreib…
Here in Britain, thousands of miles away from the front lines of Iraq or Afghanistan, jihadi videos are one of the helicopter pilot transporting young men into a world of global conflict.
ABDULLAHThe way we see it is that it removes a misconception. Because America wants to show it is a superpower which cannot be defeated and nothing will ever happen to it. However this shows the power of Allah (Subhahanu wa Taala). Even if you are in the skies, Allah will bring your planes down.
10.11.22 Zawahiri on Palestine and Egypt COMMThe jihadi groups make several distinct types of videos. The first is ideological lectures, like this one by Ayman Zawahiri of al-Qaeda. Just one man, talking to camera.
10.11.33 UPSOT Zawahiri ZAWAHIRI SUBTITLES:‘I wish to speak to you today about the Zionist Crusader war against the Islamic world…And how it penetrates every aspect of our lives…Our Palestinian brothers are under siege in Palestine, in order to force them to kneel down and surrender to the tyrant Zionist/Crusader forces…
10.11.54 Ryah alNasr COMMThe jihadis also produce propaganda documentaries, like this one called ‘Winds of Victory’ by al-Qaeda in Iraq. This is the group led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi until he was killed in an American air strike. It makes a simple point about the gap between American slogans and American actions.SUBTITLESRed letters ‘Democracy’Red letters ‘Freedom’The reality is as clear as the sun
10.12.20 Suggest use opening logo to introduce, as divider from previous filmAl Mosul COMMSome documentaries celebrate big operations, like this one by the Army of Supporters of the Prophet. It shows the detailed planning for a suicide attack on an American base in the city of Mosul.They’ve mixed their own pictures with mainstream news footage filmed inside the base, taken from news reports about the attack.
Suggest use logo as divider from previous filmAbu Anas filmIntvu with masked guerrillaShot of Abu Anas praying with boysStill of Abu Anas with greenery and waterfalls COMMOther documentaries are dedicated to glorifying jihadi heroes, martyrs. This one is about a Syrian who was close to the Qaeda leader al-Zarqawi.It interviews the martyr’s colleagues, reconstructs his last hours, and imagines him in paradise.
10.13.05 Ansar al-Sunna studio presentation with two balaclavad men COMMThe motive for many of the videos is to counter what the jihadis see as distortion by mainstream media.The Supporters of the Way of the Prophet even produced an entire alternative news bulletin, complete with studio guest… whoever he was
10.13.20 UPSOT GUEST IN STUDIOSUBTITLESAnd here are some examples of the effects of the Mujahedeen’s blessed operations, which the enemy cannot hide, and which the camera of the Mujahedeen is bringing to your screens.
10.13.38 New Shoura clips –Humvee remains burningBoys cheeringKilling of spy(EXPLAIN IN CAPTIONS) COMMThe long videos take time and effort to make. So much of the time, the insurgents simply upload short clips of their latest operations. Day in, day out the insurgents are showing their view of the war, uncensored and unfiltered by international media.
10.14.06 COMMIt’s not just the jihadis and the Sunni Muslim insurgents in Iraq who are making videos. Their enemies in Iraq’s sectarian civil war, the Shi’ite Muslim Mahdi Army are at it too. Here in a Shi’ite Muslim area of Baghdad, chants and speeches by the Mahdi Army’s leader, Muqtada Sadr, blare out from stall after stall.
10.14.27 VENDOR SUBTITLES ‘After the fall of Saddam Hussein, these CDs started to spread with of religious lectures, interviews with Sayid Moqtada al-Sadr and clashes with the Americans.’
10.14.46 Excerpt from Mahdi Army video COMMLike all propaganda, the material is selective. The Mahdi Army shows only their operations against the Americans, not against fellow Iraqis.
10.15.06 Baghdad – young men buying CDs COMMMany of the buyers in this market in Baghdad are just teenagers. Abbas is 16.
10.15.13 SOUNDBITE FROM MAHDI ARMY CD BUYER ABBAS - SUBTITLES‘I love Sayid Moqtada and I love the Army’Q What do they mean to you?ABBASThey mean a lot. If all I could do was watch THE VIDEOS, my life would be worthwhile.
10.15.22 MAN IN BLUE SHIRT SUBTITLESMUHANNAD, 24“These acts excite me. I love the words, and I feel it pushes me to jihad, and to resist.’
10.15.30 Sniper of FallujaSniper shootsSniper shoots again COMMMany of the videos use extreme violence to shock and grip their audience. The imagery of this video comes straight from a video game. But the shooting is real.
10.15.50 JUBA 2Sniper comes in, sits downSniper marks day’s kills on a chart COMMAnother Iraqi group, the Islamic Army has made two special videos about its sniper unit. This is the newest.Sniper violence is ideal for propaganda because it so clearly targets American soldiers, not Iraqi civilians.
10.16.07 COMMThe most violent videos are designed simply to strike terror into the jihadi’s enemies, and thrill their supporters.
10.16.16 Islamic Army – shooting of helicopter crewman This video, also by the Islamic Army in Iraq conveys utter contempt for a defeated enemy.Lyubomir Kostov, the Bulgarian pilot of a helicopter carrying security contractors, survived being shot down. The fighters told him to run, and then shot him dead.
10.16.42 Abu Bukhary executions COMMThe most extreme videos, and the most notorious around the world, are the beheadings of prisoners. Some of these have been Westerners held hostage, most have been Iraqis serving in the security forces.I can’t watch these in their original form and I won’t impose them on you. But these stills are enough to demonstrate that these are made-for-video events.The death sentence could be carried out much more easily with a bullet. The sole purpose of the butcher’s knife is to create a more terrifying image on video.
10.17.20 Faris bin Hizam setup shots – fingers on keyboard, eye COMMThe beheading videos were pioneered by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who used them to cement his position as the most feared jihadi commander in Iraq.But Faris bin Hizam, reporting on the videos from Dubai, says they were opposed by Osama bin Laden and Ayman Zawahiri, who believed they would alienate Muslim supporters.
10.17.40 FARIS BIN HIZAMSUBTITLESThere are divisions. There are people who support Zarqawi in his media approachTo spread horror to its utmost extent, and there are others who oppose itBecause they are from school of Bin Laden and Zawahiri.We will find that Bin Ladin’s school is more clever in terms of marketing and delivering their images and information.
10.18.14 Boys on bench viewing helicopter video. COMMHere in Britain, thousands of miles away from the front lines, jihadi videos like this one of the helicopter pilot transport young men into the world of the jihad.
10.18.27 ABDULLAHThe way we see it is that it removes a misconception. Because America wants to show it is a superpower which cannot be defeated and nothing will ever happen to it. However this shows the power of Allah (Subhahanu wa Taala). Even if you are in the skies, Allah will bring your planes down.
10.18.45 MOHAMMEDI mean, obviously I am not going to go out and behead anybody. But the fact that I saw the video, I know that there is a war going on It is not just something far away and I don’t hear about it. There are people being killed, there’s blood being spilled. We need to stop the cycle of bloodshed by removing the troops from iraq.
10.19.04 Islamic army video sequences of grenade throwers COMMThe insurgent groups in Iraq are putting great effort into filming their operations.Here the Islamic Army has placed a cameraman in a shop across the road from a planned attack.
10.19.22 Shoura Council video of attack on police station COMMThe cameramen are as close to the front line as the fighters – this is an attack on an Iraqi police station by the Mujahedeen Shoura Council, the alliance of which al Qaeda in Iraq is now part.
10.19.38 COMMThe videos are edited and uploaded using tools anyone with a computer might recognise.
10.19.43 Fuad footage COMMWe obtained this footage of an anonymous jihadi video producer somewhere in the Middle East. He’s involved with the Global Islamic Media Front, a network of media producers who compile and distribute material from many different jihadi groups – using standard Microsoft software made in the USA.
10.20.02 VIDEO PRODUCER SUBTITLESNow we move to the editing stage. We use the programme “Windows Movie Maker”, which is a specialized programme for making films. Now we move the logo, like this, then we choose the title which is “Al Qaeda in the Land of the Two Rivers”.After that we choose the video files of the operations we want. Now we can see scenes of the operations.
10.20.55 FARIS BIN HIZAM SUBTITLESSUGGEST: AT FIRST, WE THOUGHT THESE PEOPLE WERE WORKING for TV CHANNELS… (In the beginning there was talk of whether these people were working in TV channels.)In fact they don’t. The people who were producing films for al-Qaeda in Saudi Arabia, for example, were young men in their twenties, and we know that the young generation are fond of the new technology and computers, from PlayStation to the most sophisticated computers.
10.21.21 Fuad footage COMMThe jihadis take the process very seriously.There’s a chain of command and the finished video is not uploaded until it’s been checked and approved.
10.21.31 VIDEO PRODUCER SUBTITLESThe purpose of this work is to inspire the young men, the main aim is to show the Mujahedeen as God sees them, and not as the media distorts them. That’s what we are doing here.
10.21.53 COMMSo the cheap, easily available technology most people are using to make and share their holiday videos is being used as a weapon in a war.
10.22.05 Blackburn GVs COMMHere in Britain, jihadi videos have started to leak into popular culture. They’re swapped by email, or between mobile phones on bluetooth wireless connections. And they’re spreading more widely on the internet.
10.22.17 Abu Mousa looking at his video collection Abu Moussa in Blackburn in Lancashire has an impressive collection. He once followed Abu Hamza, the preacher at Finsbury Park mosque in London. No longer, since Abu Hamza is now serving a seven-year sentence for sermons which were judged to be soliciting murder.
10.22.34 ABU MOUSSAWhat’s happening is that people are posting these on mainstream sites like You Tube, and are watching it through You Tube now, so the audiences get wider, and you see another face of that war.
10.22.47 YouTube screenshotsPLEASE REVERSE ORDER OF CLIPS – SECOND ONE IS THE SHOURA COUNCIL CLIP WHICH WE TALK ABOUT FIRST COMMHe’s right.It took me only minutes to find this video by the Mujahedeen Shoura Council in Iraq on YouTube.The sites are taking down jihadi videos as quickly as they find them, but they don’t always find them and more are being uploaded almost every day. This one had been viewed about 2,500 times in 10 weeks.
10.23.12 Abou Moussa in shopDirty Kuffar COMMSome British Muslims are even making their own videos – Abu Moussa had this one on his phone.The video’s been around for a while now but it was a big hit when it first came out, a piece of very British rap which directly copies the imagery of jihadi videos. Kuffar means ‘infidels’.
10.23.30 Dirty Kuffar UPSOT DIRTY KUFFAR
10.23.48 COMMWhen the British government starts talking about creating podcasts to reach alienated young Muslims, this is what it’s competing against.
10.23.56 MORE DIRTY KUFFAR
END OF PART 2
Part 3 – From Al-Arabiya to Al-Manar
10.25.00 Shopping Mall in DubaiMobile phone stallInternet café scene COMMSome young British Muslims are watching jihadi videos. But what about in the Arab world, where people are directly affected by the wars that feature in the videos? Are millions of people downloading jihadi propaganda?It’s easy to imagine that people might be attracted to the jihadi view of the world. They are bombarded by satellite television showing images of grief and death.
10.25.31 ARCHIVEAL MANAR NEWS IMAGES COMMEvery day the top stories on Arab television news are about suffering in Iraq, Palestine, Lebanon, Afghanistan, Kashmir – most of it blamed one way or another on America, Israel and Britain.
10.25.44 AL JAZEERA ARCHIVE George Bush giving speechJazeera news report on Qana COMMThis is al-Jazeera, the granddaddy of mainstream Arab satellite channels, reporting an Israeli air strike on the village of Qana in south Lebanon this summer.
10.25.57 AL ARABIYA ARVHICE Al Arabiya package on Israeli shelling of beach in Gaza, killing whole family. COMMHere is al Arabiya, the other big Arab satellite channel, on Israeli shelling of a beach in the Gaza Strip, killing 7 members of one family and leaving a little girl bereft.
10.26.08 AL ARABIYA ARCHIVE AL-ARABIYA REPORTER V/OSUBTITLES“Thousands of Palestinians turned out to mourn dozens of martyrs, including 7 from one family, in scenes of sadness, anger and calls for revenge.
10.26.18 AL ARABIYA ARCHIVEAl-Arabiya programme (World after 9/11) on fifth anniversary of 9/11 (intercut programme itself with behind the scenes shots… COMMSome Arab media are worried about the impact of the continual images of death and suffering.
10.26.27 END OF ARCHIVE – ACTUALITY, ARABIYA NEWSROOM COMMAl Arabiya is based in Dubai and owned by liberal Saudis.The staff would easily fit into a Western newsroom. In fact, many of them have done.
10.26.38 Upsot on woman producer (Hanadi)SUBTITLES‘Can we please put the last question about the prisoners…Ask about Arab governments holding prisoners in their jails. Not only in Guantanamo.
10.26.50 Executive Editor Nabil Khatib in editorial meeting COMMThere’s still no escape from the Middle East news agenda of violence and blood. Today the editors are debating whether Bin Laden or Abu Musab Al Zarqawi is more bloody.
10.27.02 Surreal argument in editorial meeting UPSOT on exchange between Tarek and Helen al-HajSUBTITLESTAREK VOICE OFF CAMERA‘Yes, I agree, but there weren’t any beheadings’TAREK IN VISION‘Yes, the way of doing it. It’s more…‘It’s more thirsty for blood than killing people. It’s just more provoking’MAN VOICE OFF CAMERA‘Because Al Qaeda kills Muslims, Zarqawi kills Muslims…HELEN ‘What I mean is that the difference in means doesn’t make it less bloody.‘In the end, they’re both bloody. Both approaches are bloody.’
10.27.32 Nabil Khatib during meetingSetup of Nabil sitting in edit room pushing tape into machine. COMMIn the end, they still couldn’t agree.The Executive Editor, Nabil Khatib, is passionate about not showing too much blood and horror on the screen.During the Lebanon war, Al Arabiya had exclusive footage of the aftermath of an Israeli commando raid near Baalbekin which civilians hiding in an orchard had been cut to pieces by Israeli machine gun fire. Nabil refused to run most of the pictures.
10.27.58 AL ARABIYA ARCHIVEGruesome rushesAL ARABIYA ARCHIVE NABIL KHATIBExecutive Editor, al ArabiyaWe’re talking about some50 minutes of rushes of horrible scenes, of people showing parts of the bodies of their beloved who used to be their beloved yesterday and now are just parts of bodies.
10.28.18 Cut to Nabil unable to watch COMMNabil still can’t watch the original videotapes.
10.28.25 AL ARABIYA ARCHIVEArabiya final edit of Baalbek story COMMThis was the edit Nabil finally approved. It’s still difficult to watch.
10.28.30 AL ARABIYA ARCHIVE UPSOT REPORTER V/O ‘This is what remains of the men of this town – fragments of bodies which we cannot show because the images are too disturbing
10.28.37 AL ARABIYA ARCHIVEMORE OF THE FINAL EDIT OF BAALBACK STORY NABIL KHATIB V/OI have a kid who is three years and half years old. She knows Lebanon, she understands that her grandmother is living in Lebanon.I don’t want her to learn that there is somebody bad who broke your beloved people’s house; she’ll start hating people on this basis. That’s how you see generations after generations of people growing up on hatred
10.29.05 AL JAZEERA ARCHIVEJazeera programme ‘Opposite Direction’ on tape recorded off TV COMMBut it is not just the images. Debate in the studio in the Arab world often starts at a point which in Europe, let alone America, would already be off the chart.On this Jazeera programme called Opposite Direction, the liberal voice, a Palestinian academic called Ahmad Abu Matar, still supports Palestinian and Hizbollah attacks on Israelis, and Iraqi attacks on American soldiers. He says they’re acting in self-defence. But his opponent, the Moroccan writer Khnata Banouna, defends Osama bin Laden’s campaign of killing Americans anywhere in the world.
10.29.40 AL JAZEERA ARCHIVE Khnata BANOUNA SUBTITLE‘There is absolutely no justification for saying that Bin Laden and the other Mujahedeen have no right to carry on their jihad. How are we supposed to resist this tyrant who is trying to obliterate us?And let America and Israel know that we are not the Red Indians we have firm religious and cultural and historical bases and they will not make Red Indians of us.AHMAD ABU MATAR SUBTITLE‘I am against the theft of nations.I am against the terrorism being practiced against Palestinians, Lebanese and Iraqis.But I will not use terrorism in return.”
10.30.26 AL JAZEERA ARCHIVE COMMThe programme presenter, Faycal Qassem, challenges Banouna, saying the Western reaction to al-Qaeda’s attacks has been to sacrifice civil liberties. Is this anything Muslims can be proud of?
10.30.40 AL JAZEERA ARCHIVE BANOUNA SUBTITLESNo reasonable person could be proud. but they have stolen from us, slaughtered us, humiliated us, starved usand tried to put us on the lowest rung of humanity. Is it not our right to defend ourselves? So this Jihadi action is just a graze on the back of this enormous dinosaur.
10.31.10 Workers dormitory set-up, showing that these are bachelor workers, not well off.
10.31.13 Egyptian workers watching TV in dormitory COMMThe language of victimhood and injustice hits home with a mass of young working class Arabs.These Egyptian guest workers I met in Dubai had the Muslim profession of faith written in marker pen across their dormitory door. Religion, presented by charismatic preachers on satellite television, is what shapes their view of the world.
10.31.35 COMMBut they still make a strong distinction between Palestinians or Iraqis or Lebanese fighting to defend their land, and blowing up tube trains in London. This is Ali from Alexandria.
10.31.46 ALI SUBTITLESIf someone attacks you in your land you wouldn’t accept it.Islam gives us rights to defend ourselves when we are attacked,but some people have violated or misunderstood the religion. They are terrorists and don’t belong to our religion in any way.
10.32.05 Cutaways, view from balcony COMMThe men do believe that the West has been out to get them since colonial times when Britain and France ruled most of the Middle East. And they are so suspicious of America that they really believe the CIA was responsible for 9/11. This is Hussam from Cairo.
10.32.21 Interviews – men gathered around Hussam HUSSAM SUBTITLES “I think that Bin Ladin and Zawahiri are a US product, and couldn’t have organised 9/11. Q – What do you mean, that someone was behind them?HUSSAMI mean that it was all done by the American Intelligence. Nasir will tell you why.
10.32.40 NASIR SUBTITLES“They wanted to distort the image of Islam and the world. The whole aim was to blame Muslims for 9/11Q: why did they want to distort the image of Islam?NASIRSo they can colonise everywhere, and CALL you a TERRORIST WHEN YOU TRY TO DEFEND yOUR COUNTRY.
10.33.02 COMMThese Egyptians use email at an internet café in a nearby shopping mall. But they say they haven’t watched any jihadi videos.
10.33.11 Faris bin Hizam fingers on keyboard / over shoulder at screen COMMAnd that’s the pattern I found more widely. The evidence is that relatively few people, even in an Arab world seething with anti-Western hostility, actively go looking for jihadi videos.
10.33.24 FARIS BIN HIZAMSUBTITLESThe number is small in general because these websites are password protected.You must subscribe and be approved and only then you can ENTER THE SITE.For example, al-Hesbah which is in the top ten Jihadi WEBSITES, tells you at the BOTTOM OF THE screen that there are 400 PEOPLE logged in, and 1,800 HAVE VISITED THE SITE TODAY.I can’t remember a day when there were more than 2000 VISITORS.
10.34.03 DamascusFlags in street, old city sceneDamascus Gvs – new part of city with mountain behindBooks outside university COMMI went to Syria, which George Bush says it supports terrorism and the axis of evil. Outside Damascus University, there are plenty of books on sale supporting Hizbollah’s fight against Israel, and others by charismatic Muslim preachers. But there are also volumes of 1,000 best romantic text messages.
10.34.30 GVs Damascus at night COMMThe state in Syria controls local television and newspapers, and dissidents are hauled off to jail. But young people do have access to uncensored satellite channels such as Al Arabiya, Al Jazeera and Hizbollah’s station, Al-Manar. And they can get on the Internet.
Setup of Golan students COMMYoung Syrians are conscious of the power of the television images they are watching. This group, for instance, disagreed about how much of the horror of the war should be shown on mainstream news bulletins, especially if children might be watching.
10.35.01 A man with a black sleeve less T shirt speaking SUBTITLE“Why not watch such images? Yes children can be warned but for adults why not? This is reality and happening on the ground. It’s better to SHOW reality. The era of covering up in 60s and 70s and 80s is over.
10.35.23 NARGIS SUBTITLEI think it’s wrong. Children should know THERE’S A WAR AND PEOPLE ARE DYING, BUT THEY DON’T NEED TO SEE DISTURBING IMAGES WHICH MAY AFFECT THEM PSYCHOLOGICALLY IN THE FUTURE
10.35.42 Students in amphitheatre COMMA few of them have seen some jihadi videos from the internet, but they don’t rate them.
10.35.47 Q - What sort of things have you seen?NIHAD BRAIDMedical studentBombers, suicide bombers. I don’t agree with that. It’s scary, very scary. Beheading people, cutting heads! It’s something very scary.
10.36.06 Damascus internet café COMMThe truth is when young Syrians go to the Internet café, the most popular application is not extreme politics but video dating.
10.36.15 Gvs Beirut big advertising hoardings SUBTITLE“The Invincible Army” (poster of weeping Israeli soldier)SUBTITLE“The graveyard of the aggressors” (posters of coffins draped in Israeli flags) COMMThere is one other type of media in the Arab world – television that directly serves political parties, and even private armies.
10.36.27 AL MANAR ARCHIVEManar TV stingManar archive martyr’s promo film COMMAl-Manar is the satellite channel of Hizbollah, a Lebanese religious-political movement with more military power than the government. The channel unashamedly glorifies war against Israel.Hizbollah has just fought, and in its view defeated, Israel in a month of fighting this summer.Al-Manar is available across the Middle East on satellite. Its stars are the mothers of men killed in battle.
10.37.01 AL MANAR ARCHIVE UPSOT PROMO VIDEOMOTHER OF MARTYRI have not an ounce of regret, because I thank GodI have made myself proud, I have raised my dignity, and my faith is deeper because of his martyrdom. Because this is honour, dignity and pride for me, and for the whole Arab and Islamic world.
10.37.20 GV dramatic hole in ground COMMAl Manar’s message is so powerful that during this summer’s war Israel tried to blast the station from the face of the earth. Ali Hashem is a reporter for the channel. This was his office.
10.37.38 ALI HASHEMAl Manar reporterThis was out News Room before. Q - “were people in the building it was hit?”AliAs I knew, yes, we had 28 people inside the building; reporters, editors, and cameramen, technicians. The newsroom was just one storey under this. The guys were there, they escaped deathQ- so how did Al manar keep broadcasting?AliThat’s the big secret! We just shifted from A to B - in case plan B was revealed or bombarded than plan C was going to be on the right track.Q – How long were you off air?Ali:Two or three minutes, that’s all.
10.38.27 AL MANAR ARCHIVENEWS COMMThe first public appearance after the war by Hizbollah’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, was a made-for-TV event.
10.38.37 AL MANAR ARCHIVEAl Manar high shots of rally Ali Hashem stand-upSUBTITLE‘From the victory parade ground, this is Ali Hashem for Al Manar TV.’
AL MANAR ARCHIVE COMMAl Manar mounted a day-long outside broadcast with multiple cameras.
10.38.50 OTN Footage of Nasrallah victory speech Nasrallah Speech SUBTITLESWe have to say that this was an American war in its brutality, in its weaponry, and in its planning
10.39.05 COMMHizbollah’s followers – that is, al-Manar’s viewers, are passionate about the movement.
10.39.11 Ali Tahseen Hiader, a young man wearing a yellow T shirt and white hat speaking Ali Tahseen Haider SUBTITLE“We came here today to obey Sayid Hassan’s call. We do whatever he wants. We came for the sake of the martyrswho died defending the country and fought the infidel Jews.
10.39.30 A woman called Muntaha, wearing a black rob and red hat speaking WOMAN IN BLACK SCARFSUBTITLE…the American armies, the Israeli armies…I spit on them. Bush is a dog.
10.39.40 Gvs Internet café in southern suburbs of Beirut, children playing in screen COMMChildren in the Shi’ite Muslim suburbs of Beirut grow up watching al-Manar. They expect to join Hizbollah’s army and fight Israel. Hizbollah runs a multi-platform propaganda machine. It has even produced a video game for them to practice killing Israelis.
10.39.58 Sequence from video game ‘Special Force’ HUSSEIN AMMAR OFF CAMERASUBTITLEThe idea is to show kids how the resistance penetrates the enemy positions (HUSSEIN IN VISION)and show them how Hizbollah hunts down terrorists and who Hizbollah is and what they doIt makes them want to JOIN THE RESISTANCE when they grow up to do it for real with the Hizbollah, and join in with the boys to wipe out the terrorists.
10.40.42 Man making martyrdom poster on PC COMMWar against Israel is part of the culture here. Hussein’s Dad is tucked in a corner making a martyrdom poster of his brother-in-law. He was killed fighting the Israelis in the summer.
10.40.53 ABU HUSSEINSUBTITLEThis will be a poster to put up next to the martyr’s house.It will be 1.5 by 2.5 metres. Q- where can you get it printed?There are lots of places that print these big posters. Any number of places.
10.41.15 Setup Mohammed Ammar COMMHussein’s little brother Mohammed likes all the war games.
10.41.20 Intvu Mohammed Ammar MOHAMMED AMMARSUBTITLEI like it because it makes you feel that you are building a state. You are the leader and you are everything Q- why do you like war games? You already live in war, wouldn’t it better to play something more peaceful? MOHAMMED AMMARSUBTITLEIt’s so that when we grow up, we would have an idea of what happensand how we should go forward and volunteer.
END OF PART 3
Part 4 – Impact
10.43.00 Setup of Nadim Abdel-razak (WP11 – Tripoli, Lebanon)Legless young man – avoid if possible any of the touching pix of his kittens & him praying – keep that for the end COMMTelevision pictures do make some people go to war.Nadim Abdel-Razak went to fight what he believed was a jihad against the Americans when they invaded Iraq in 2003. He left his village in northern Lebanon and joined other volunteers who crossed into Iraq from Syria.
10.43.21 NADIM ABDEL-RAZAKSUBTITLEWhen I left home, it was when we heard that the US forces wanted to occupy Iraq. We were watching Al Jazeera. What we saw was an Arabic Islamic country being attackedhouses destroyed, people slaughtered, air strikes,Innocent people killed.Our Jihad was to protect our religion, our honour, our land, our integrity, and our freedom. This is the true Jihad – to fight to defend everything which man recognises as honor and dignity.
10.44.17 More Nadim COMMIt was reality, as seen on mainstream TV, and not jihadi videos on the internet which provoked Nadim to fight. If America hadn’t invaded Iraq, he’d have stayed at home, and he’d still have both his legs.
10.44.33 Behind the scenes at Bees Way, setup of Kinda COMMIf war on television is driving some adult Arabs to extremes, imagine what it’s doing to the minds of children.In Syria, they even put war on children’s programmes.
Sequences of Bees Way regular programme going out – scene in gallery, sign-language girl at work, children guests sitting on coloured bench in studio, lots of simpering and smiling. COMMKinda Nassli’s show, ‘Bees’ Way’, on Syria’s state-run satellite station is normally a bit syrupy by European standards.But when war broke out between Israel and Hizbollah, Kinda devoted two special programmes to it.
10.45.01 SYRIA TV ARCHIVEOpening credit sequenceSUBTITLE:‘THE RAINS OF ISRAEL’ COMMShe showed pictures of death and destruction. Children recited poems in praise of the Hizbollah leader, Hassan Nasrallah.
10.45.16 SYRIA TV ARCHIVEKinda presenting Kinda in black T-shirt KINDA NASSLISUBTITLEGreetings to the children of Srifa and Marwaheen, of Maroun al-Ras and Bint Jbeil, to all the children of Lebanon, Palestine and Iraq, to all Arab children who are bleeding, congratulations on martyrdom on the altar of freedom. May your hearts be red stars shining in the long black night.
10.45.35 SYRIA TV ARCHIVEVT played into programme COMMKinda played true life stories recorded by children fleeing Lebanon.
10.45.40 SYRIA TV ARCHIVE The Child’s voice: SUBTITLE“I saw a man, his head was in one place and his body in another. Each part of him in a different corner.This is when we were driving hereI was afraid I’d become like him.
10.45.58 SYRIA TV ARCHIVEphotos of Israeli kids signing artillery shells to fire at Lebanon. COMMShe showed a notorious photo of Israeli children signing shells to be fired on Lebanon and asked for children in the studio to react.
10.46.07 SYRIA TV ARCHIVE ALAASUBTITLE“I want Hassan Nasrallah to strike the Israeli children, so they feel what we suffer. They never feel guilty when they kill those children. So I ask Nasrallah to kill their children, civilians as well as military so they would feel how we, Arabs, are suffering”
10.46.33 COMMKinda makes no apologies for what she showed.
10.46.38 SYRIA TV ARCHIVE IMAGESCUT TO KINDA INTERVIEW IN STUDIO SYRIA TV ARCHIVEShots of airplane firing missile, port, etc KINDA NASSLISyrian children’s presenter When the war in Lebanon happened, the children themselves demanded that we talk about it on television. We didn’t force them to share the war with us. I CAN’T DESCRIBE WHAT IT’S LIKE TO HEAR THE REAL-LIFE STORIES THEY TOLD US,IN SIMPLE CHILDISH TERMS, DESCRIBING ROCKET ATTACKS AND BOMBARDMENT OF HOMES , (The real-life stories they told us, you can’t believe how a child could be telling you in simple childish words stories about missiles or bombardment of homes, seeing their relatives – or let’s hope not their relatives the – but seeing bodies of martyrs which were pulled out from under the rubble.)All this definitely created a particular feeling emotion for children, and we couldn’t possibly ignore it.
10.47.22 Gvs Damascus streets – old city Setup of kids in picnic area (doesn’t matter if they’re shuffling into place; maybe include couple of close-ups of faces.) COMMThe sad fact is, a whole generation of young Muslims is growing up with its view of the world shaped by images of a new wave of wars - 9/11 and the War on Terror, America’s wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, six years of new Israeli-Palestinian violence, the latest war in Lebanon. These Syrian children don’t need to watch jihadi videos to be what our governments might call “radicalised”. They just have to watch the evening news with their parents.
10.47.55 Kid invtus WAELSUBTITLEI watched Al Jazeera, Al Arabiya, Al Manar and Syria TVI saw destroyed houses, and children buried under themTheir toys were everywhere. I saw dead people cut in pieces, some without hands some without feet.
10.48.15 MARAMSUBTITLEWe can learn more and study more, so we can make weapons which we can use to defend ourselves if they invade us
10.48.26 KARIMSUBTITLEI was very sad for the kids of Lebanon who were being killed and bombed and chopped to bits…I was sad for Lebanon but I was also happy to see the Islamic Resistance destroying Israel…
10.48.44 Reprise faces of people we’ve met COMMWhat hit me travelling to make this film was not how many young people I found watching jihadi videos, but how few.
Lebanese kid playing videogameLebanese child off Syrian TVReprise images of workers’ dormitory in DubaiNadim with kittens COMMIf you grow up watching war on television every dayIf many of the voices you hear reinforce the belief that the West is an enemy of Arabs and MuslimsThen what you see and hear might well drive you to fight an invading foreign army.But it does not mean that you automatically become a naïve consumer of al-Qaeda’s internet propaganda.
10.49.19 NADIMSUBTITLEI feel I want to take revenge on America when I watch the television and see what it is doing, what it is doing to the religion of IslamI don’t want any revenge for the loss of my legs – my legs are gone, there is nothing I can do about that I just want to defend the religion of Mohammad.These Muslim lands are our lands. They are not America’s or Israel’s. They are ours.
10.49.49 Nadim is watching the videos on the laptop. COMMNadim Abdel-Razak represents something about where the heart of the Arab and maybe Muslim world is now. A young man willing to sacrifice his life to fight against what he sees as Western assaults on his nation and his religion.But he has not lost his humanity. When we asked what he thought of a jihadi beheading video, he sat and cried.
END OF PART 4
CREDITS
Production Co-ordinator
Btihaj Ajana
Archive Researchers
Matthew Sanger
Khouloud El Gamal
Archive courtesy of
Al–Arabiya
Al–Jazeera Network
Al–Manar (Lebanese Media Group)
Syria TV
Music
Cookbook DIY by Fun-Da-Mental
Ghazi Abdel Baki
La Chambre
The New Government
Researchers
Farah Dakhlallah
Farzana Fiaz
Additional Camera
Ali Gamloush
Mohamed Dakroub
Masood Khan
Afi Khan
Hamlet Sabah-Rhemma
Camera
Richard Malone
Sound Recordist
Grant Lawson
Production Manager
Claire Barry
Assistant Producer
Zeina Aboul Hosn
Dubbing Mixer
Scott Wilkinson
Online Editor
Michael Peatfield
Offline Editor
Bernard Lyall
Executive Producer
Cassian Harrison
Producer
Huda Ali
Reported, Produced and Directed by
Paul Eedle