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| Iraq-Jordan |
| Iraqi ad labels Zark a follower of the devil |
| 2005-09-19 |
| Iraqis, still stunned yesterday by sectarian violence that killed more than 200 people in four days, find themselves under a propaganda bombardment from all sides as the Americans and the Iraqi government duel insurgents for the hearts and minds of a battered people. The most recent broadside showed up in al-Mutammar, a secular daily newspaper, as an anonymous paid advertisement denouncing al-Qaida in Iraq as "followers of the devil." In language aimed at Arab sensitivities to family and tribe, the ad denounces al-Qaida in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and his mentor, Osama bin Laden, as men who strayed from Islam and their Arab roots. "There are two things in this world that warrant the direst of punishments: arrogance and cruelty against members of the same family," read the ad in yesterday's edition of al-Mutammar. "Arrogance leads them (al-Zarqawi and bin Laden) to believe they are above the law, that they can decide what Islam is ... as if they were princes and judges. "But where is the humility ... which the prophet, peace be upon him, embodied." The anti-al-Qaida diatribe was just the latest salvo, however, in a media battle in which insurgents have used the Internet to show brutal hostage beheadings and to declare war on Iraq's Shiite majority, U.S. forces and the American-backed government. For its part, the government routinely televises interrogations in which alleged insurgents confess their brutal crimes while encouraging citizens to call anonymous tip lines to report insurgent activities. And the Americans just as routinely say that the security situation steadily improves and will be better still as Iraqi political institutions take root. Reporters have been flooded with good news of schools opened after U.S. military refurbishment, water systems repaired and al-Qaida leaders captured. Yet somehow, they never seem to make it into the AP dispatches ... |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |