http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,,1990545,00.html?gusrc=rss&feed=12An American soldier slumps in the turret of his tank, felled by the infamous Baghdad sniper. A Humvee is vapourised by a roadside bomb. Rockets launch from a pick-up truck to shouts of "Allah u Akhbar
".
Back in the studio a TV anchorman, dressed in fatigues, urges viewers to rise up and fight the invaders. "We will not surrender. Either death or victory," he vows, while warning US forces and their "Iranian" friends in Iraq's government that they face a shameful defeat.
This is al-Zawraa TV, a 24-hour satellite station that lionises Iraq's insurgency to the drumbeat of Saddam-era martial music. It is a crude and dizzying mix of images and videos harvested from jihadi websites - and a cult hit. There are grainy loops of car bombs and mortar attacks interspersed with images of prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib and bloodied children. "Mujahideen" are seen training. Clips of Michael Moore's film, Fahrenheit 9/11 are thrown in for good measure.
Its chief targets are the US-led forces and "collaborators". But it reserves some of its strongest venom for the Safawis, a derogatory term used by Sunni Arabs to describe Iraq's resurgent Shia political and religious establishment. The name harks back to the Persian Safavid empire which ran amok in Baghdad in the 16th century.
-snip-
Al-Zawraa has proved a hit with disaffected youth in Baghdad. "I watch this channel every night," said Samir Aziz, 22. "I don't like encouraging violence, but it is something unusual in the argument against the Americans. I am hooked."
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what bravery - the neo cons murder media they don't like
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