We define terrorist media to include any mass communications outlet that is funded or controlled by a known terrorist organization. While there are many such media outlets, particularly on the Internet, the most prominent terrorist media property is al-Manar, the television station owned and operated by Hezbollah, the worldwide terror organization based in Lebanon. Hezbollah has been long been recognized as a terrorist organization by the U.S. State Department and many other nations’ governments. Hezbollah is the first organization of its kind to establish its own television station and use it as an operational weapon. In addition to al-Manar, Hezbollah maintains a number of media properties including a newspaper, a radio station, and various websites. Terrorist media organizations differ from private or state-owned newspapers, broadcasters, and on-line news sources and should not be granted the same free speech considerations. Hezbollah uses al-Manar to incite violence, recruit suicide bombers, and communicate with its soldiers in the field. In other words, al-Manar is just one tool, like car bombs or assassinations, by which Hezbollah operates. In announcing al-Manar’s addition to the U.S. Terrorism Exclusion List, State Department Spokesman Richard Boucher explained: "It's not a question of freedom of speech. It's a question of incitement to violence, and we don't see why, here or anywhere else, a terrorist organization should be allowed to spread its hatred and incitement through the television airwaves.” Winning the global war on terrorism requires that we start to view terrorist media as a serious threat.

Al-Manar, Arabic for “the beacon,” is the official television station of Hezbollah. The terrorist organization uses al-Manar—which it calls the “station of resistance”—as an integral part of its overall operations. In fact, it is the first organization of its kind to establish its own television station and use it as an operational weapon. With the stated purpose of waging “psychological warfare,” al-Manar is a potent instrument. Its programming skillfully combines news, talk shows, documentary series, propaganda music videos, and other elements in order to propagate an ideology of hate, terrorism and militant Islam. Al-Manar broadcasts its incitement to violence 24 hours a days, seven days a week. What is al-Manar?

• Funded and controlled by Hezbollah, the Lebanon-based worldwide terror organization, Al-Manar is a television station with global reach.
• Each day, it is viewed by 10-15 million people around the world.
• Al-Manar’s stated purpose is to wage “psychological warfare” against its enemies, including the United States.
• According to on al-Manar official, its programming is meant to “help people on the way to committing what you call in the West a suicide mission.”
• Many of al-Manar’s videos aim to recruit terrorists. Viewers are told that "the path to becoming a priest in Islam is through jihad."
• Al-Manar is more than a propaganda tool. It is the communications arm of a known terrorist organization that has sleeper cells in the United States and throughout the world.

Spreading Hatred, Recruiting Terrorists, and Inciting Violence:

• Hezbollah's leader Hassan Nasrallah uses al-Manar to call for “Death to America!” and denounce America as the “Great Satan” and a “beast that is hungry for power and hungry for blood.”
• Al-Manar programming has called on Jihadis to kill American soldiers in Iraq. One video, set to martial music, proclaims: “Down with the mother of terrorism! America threatens in vain, an occupying army of invaders. Nothing remains but rifles and suicide bombers.” The video ends with an image of a suicide bomber's belt detonating.
• In one al-Manar video, the Statue of Liberty transforms into a knife-wielding ghoul dripping blood. It concludes: “America owes blood to all of humanity.”
• Al-Manar ran videos during afternoon television glorifying suicide bombing to children.
• Al-Manar ran a shockingly anti-Semitic movie falsely and viciously accusing Jews of killing children to make Passover Matzah.

Hezbollah's Trail of Terror:

• Until the al-Qaeda attacks of September 11, Hezbollah had killed more Americans than any other terrorist organization.
• Hezbollah was behind the 1983 suicide bombing of the U.S. Marine barracks in Lebanon that claimed 241 American lives.
• Hezbollah was involved in the 1985 hijacking of TWA Flight 587 during which its members executed a U.S. Navy diver.
• Hezbollah has been linked to the 1996 attack against the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia that killed 19 Americans and wounded hundreds more.
• U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage puts Hizoballah on the “A-team” of terrorist organizations.

Al-Manar’s worldwide presence:

• Al Manar maintains a correspondent in Washington, D.C. It also has correspondents in France, Russia, Belgium, Sweden, Iraq and other nations.
• Al-Manar is currently broadcast throughout the Middle East, Europe and North Africa by two satellite providers: ARABSAT, owned by the government of Saudi Arabia, and Nilesat, whose largest shareholder is the government of Egypt. The Coalition Against Terrorist Media has been instrumental in removing al-Manar from seven satellite providers. As a result, al-Manar is no longer broadcast to North America, South and Central America, Asia, Australia, and much of Africa.
• Al-Manar receives advertising from global companies. Until recently, al-Manar even had American sponsors.
• Al-Manar raises money for Hezbollah on its broadcasts – viewers in the past have been directed to four Lebanese banks to make their contributions.

For more information:

• Please see Beacon of Hatred, Inside Hizballah’s Al-Manar Television, by Avi Jorisch, Senior Fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, which was published by the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. Copies can be ordered here.
• Please visit the al-Manar section of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies blog for updates and commentary.