Terrorist TV
(Via Billmon)
Two Iraqi insurgent groups are producing TV shows (one with a talk show frame), in which military operations and the executions of members of rival militias are shown on-screen. Nibras Kazimi gives us the lowdown:
Remember the days when a bunch of ragtag hoodlums in ski-masks and training suits would hover over a hapless victim to read their jihadist manifesto? ...Well, times have changed if the latest video installment from the "Media Division of the Jaish Ansar Al-Sunna" is any measure to go by. In this 30 minute video, we see two individuals, Abu Munther Al-Ansari, and Abu Ahmad Al-Baghdadi, comfortably sitting in a studio modeled along a talk-show format... And I'm not talking about two stools and a desk; this is a modern studio with ample lighting, three camera angles and nice woodwork.
The Jaish Ansar Al-Sunna's talk show has hosts in ski masks, and shows clips of their attacks on US military targets, as well as their takeover of a neighborhood. (It's being distributed in RealAudio format.)
Their competition is the Omar Brigade of Al-Qaeda in Iraq, who have assembled their own version of Cops:
Zarqawi's Omar Brigade (set-up to kill and capture members of SCIRI's Badr Brigade) showcases a bunch of captured Badrists and has them utter their confessions on tape. This 11 minute video... 'interviews' about seven men, all of whom seem to have been recruited by 'Abu Zemen'... They all confess to all sorts of crimes from "raping Sunni virgins" to spying on the insurgents and giving away the locations of safe-houses and arms caches.Abu Zemen, whose confession is shown towards the very end after we hear voice-overs from Zarqawi condemning Shias in general, lists the goals of the Badr Brigade as follows: to distribute drugs, to kill Sunnis and rape their women, and to kill Sunni university professors, doctors, and ex-officers.
The video ends with Abu Zemen being shot in the back of the head, as well as having his house blown-up [sic].
This is disturbing on so many levels.