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Television helps break mystique of holy warrior
By Steve Negus and Dhiya Rasan
Published: March 24 2005 02:00 | Last updated: March 24 2005 02:00

Say theword mujahid- or holy warrior - these days and many inhabitants of Baghdad are likely to snigger.

An appellation once worn as a badge of pride by anti-American insurgents has now become street slang for homosexuals, after men claiming to be captured Islamist guerrillas confessed that they were holding gay orgies in the popular Iraqi TV programme Terror in the Hands of Justice.

For Iraqis opposed to the predominantly Sunni Islamist insurgency, Terror in the Hands of Justice, which airs twice daily on Iraqi public television, has broken the mystique of a force that used to strike terror into the hearts of anyone working with the Americans or the new government.

But for many Sunni, even some who do not support the insurgents' goals, the programme's suggestion that the entire guerrilla movement comprises sexual libertines and petty criminals is an insult to their community.

The "terrorists" on television are almost certainly not actors but genuine detainees arrested by the security forces on suspicion of being part of the insurgency. Many Iraqis claim to have recognised on television the guerrillas who threatened them, while the families of some of the televised detainees have called up Iraqi politicians trying to convince them of their sons' innocence.

However, many Iraqis believe that the stern-faced officers of the "Wolf Brigade", the Iraqi security unit that arrested most of the alleged terrorists, may have pushed the suspects - some of whom appear on the programme sporting bruises - to embellish their "confessions".

When the programme first aired two months ago, it mostly featured non-Iraqi Arabs who claimed to have entered the country to aid the insurgency, reinforcing many Iraqis' belief that the insurgency is driven by foreign extremists such as al-Qaeda.

In time, however, the programme began to feature men who said they were petty criminals, killing "collaborators" for a few hundred dollars' bounty.

In fact, the US and Iraqi security forces have for some time claimed to have ample evidence that many insurgent attacks were launched by out-of-work soldiers desperate for money. Some well-known insurgent captains had former lives under the old regime as gang leaders.

In recent weeks, however, the insurgents' confessions have become increasingly at odds with the movement's reputation for stringent Islamic austerity.

One long-bearded preacher known as Abu Tabarek recently confessed that guerrillas had usually held orgies in his mosques, secure in the knowledge that their status as holy warriors would win them forgiveness of their sins.

Another guerrilla commander had a somewhat unusual nomme de guerre for an Islamic insurgent - "Abu Lahab", an enemy of the Prophet Mohammed singled out in the Koran for special opprobrium.

Many Iraqi Shia, whose clerics and mosques are targeted increasingly frequently by insurgents, have no reservations about the show, claiming it shows the "true face of the criminals".

But for some Sunni, the show is evidence of the depths to which Iraq's new rulers will go to defame the insurgents. In a sermon last Friday, the popular preacher Abd al-Salaam al-Qubaisy urged his west Baghdad congregation to "defend the reputation of the nationalist resistance" against the "Americans and their agents", a reference to the current politicians ruling the country.

Meanwhile, more mainstream Sunni leaders want the programme taken off the air, claiming it polarises an already divided country.

Some human rights activists, meanwhile, say that the programme encourages police to abuse insurgent and ordinary criminal suspects by implying that it is desirable to extract as outrageous a confession as possible.

Sabah Khadim, spokesman for Iraq's interior minister, says that the programme may have run its course, and should be reviewed.

He denies that the confessions were extracted by torture but has his doubts as to whether those confessing are being truthful or simply saying whatever they think their captors want to hear. He also has reservations over whether the display of prisoners on television violates the Geneva Convention.

But, Mr Khadem says, the programme has been immensely effective in getting Iraqis to come forward with information about guerrillas, leading to a surge in the number of insurgents captured.

"If this were not an emergency situation, we would not have run this," he says. "But it is an emergency situation, and this produces results." Additional reporting by Dhiya Rasan