Hezbollah on Your iPhone: There’s An App for That

Update: The Almanartv application was removed from Apple’s iTunes over the weekend. However, it is still available for other platforms, such as Android.

In the latest example of terrorist organizations exploiting current technology to spread their violent messages, an application was made available on Wednesday through Apple’s iTunes service providing mobile access to content from Hezbollah’s satellite television station, al-Manar.

Al-Manar's iTunes App

The new free application, advertised on air by al Manar, directs users to various station content, including speeches by Hezbollah leader, Hassan Nasrallah. Al-Manar broadcasts the terrorist group’s messages of hate and violence, disseminates anti-Semitic and anti-American propaganda and glorifies suicide bombings to millions of viewers 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Hezbollah is a U.S. designated Foreign Terrorist Organization, and al-Manar was included on the State Department’s Terrorism Exclusion List in December 2004.

Al-Manar has a presence on other internet platforms as well, including a Twitter account with over 17,000 followers and 51,000 messages.  Other terrorist organizations use the microblogging service, including Al Shabaab, a terrorist organization in Somalia which formally merged with Al Qaeda earlier this year. There are also numerous terrorist support pages on Facebook and other social media platforms.

American “Global March to Jerusalem” Activist Interviewed by Hezbollah

During an interview last week with Hezbollah’s satellite television station Al-Manar, Sarah Ann Marusek, an American organizer of the upcoming “Global March to Jerusalem” (GMJ), discussed the goals of the campaign.    

Marusek told Al-Manar that her participation in the GMJ is intended to “not only to provoke the American government, but to provoke those Americans who claim to support the Palestinians while at the same time support a solution that eliminates the right of refugees to return.”

Marusek added, “Decision makers in the U.S. are living in fear because of the Zionist lobby; if they made a decision that supports the Palestinians, they will be condemned and lose their jobs and the support they have.”

The interview with Al-Manar followed a press conference at the Journalists Union in Beirut, Lebanon, which was attended by various Palestinian militant factions in Lebanon. Hassan Zaidan, head of the Committee to Support the Resistance in Palestine, a group closely associated with Hezbollah, spoke before Marusek, stating that “to count on Western and American intentions in order to free Jerusalem and achieve the return of refugees is pathetic.”  

Marusek is currently a PhD candidate Syracuse University and a political analyst for Iran’s English-language propaganda television station Press TV. She maintains a website that offers English translation of Hassan Nasrallah speeches.

Marusek also works with the Right to Return Committee in Lebanon, which co-organized a July 2011 rally with Hezbollah in Mar Ilias refugee camp in Lebanon to honor wounded Palestinians who participated in the May 2011 “Nakba day” march. The march was organized in part on social networking sites calling for a “Third Palestinian Intifada,” or violent uprising against the State of Israel.

“Global March to Jerusalem” Meets With Militant Islamic Group in Lebanon

GMJ Meeting at Ain Al-Hilwa

The Lebanon Committee of the Global March to Jerusalem held a meeting last week at Ain Al-Hilwa Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon with representatives of various Palestinian factions, including members of militant group Anssarullah, according to the Palestinian Refugees in Lebanon website.

Anssarullah, reportedly a “religious radical group” with a few hundred fighters in its membership, has been described by some observers as a Palestinian faction loyal to Hezbollah inside Ain Al-Hilwa. Its first reported attack took place in 2003 when two of its members, Hassan Suleiman and Ayman Zaidan, were reportedly killed in a suicide raid on an American convoy in Iraq.

The Global March to Jerusalem campaign seeks to coordinate efforts by international activists to cross Israel’s borders on March 30, 2012, and enter Jerusalem to “demand [its] freedom.” The campaign’s North American chapter, which is accepting tax-exempt donations through the California-based Free Palestine Movement, stated on its website that their “legal advisers in US have determined that it is better for them to operate separately from the main coalition.”

The Ain Al-Hilwa meeting was also attended by leaders representing the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO), Islamic Brigades and the Palestinian Alliance. During the meeting, Isam Halabi, Secretary General of the Gathering of Palestinian Martyrs, said “it is important to hold activities in support of our people inside the homeland who are facing an extermination war.”

Israeli Diplomats in India and Georgia Latest Targets Abroad

Update: On February 21, the Azerbaijani National Security Ministry announced it had arrested an unspecified number of individuals working for Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps and Hezbollah for planning attacks against the Israeli Embassy and a Jewish cultural center.

A bombing targeting Israeli embassy personnel in India and a similar attempt in Georgia yesterday come on the heels of recent threats by Iranian officials to attack Israeli interests world-wide.

In New Delhi, a bombing of an Israeli embassy vehicle injured the wife of the Israeli Defense Attaché to India and three others as she drove to pick up her children at school. Another bomb targeting an embassy car in Tbilisi, Georgia, was found and defused before it could explode after a Georgian employee of the embassy notified police of a suspicious object attached to the car.

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that “Iran and its proxy Hezbollah are behind each of these attacks.” Iran’s ambassador to India called the accusation “untrue and sheer lies, like previous times” and Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman reportedly said that “Israel perpetrated the terror actions to launch psychological warfare against Iran.”

Yesterday’s bombings appear to have been timed to coincide with the fourth anniversary of the assassination of Imad Mughniyah, Hezbollah’s former Operations Chief. They are the latest in a series of attacks targeting Israeli interests in 2012. On January 12, Thai authorities arrested Artis Hussein, a Swedish-Lebanese man authorities claim is a Hezbollah operative, for allegedly targeting Israeli interests in Asia. After his arrest, Hussein led authorities to a warehouse near Bangkok where over four tons of bomb making supplies were seized. 

Less than two weeks later, Azerbaijani authorities announced that they arrested at least two local men for plotting to attack the Israeli ambassador to Azerbaijan and a local rabbi. Azerbaijan’s National Security Ministry indicated that the men are linked to Iranian intelligence agencies and were supplied with a sniper rifle, explosives and money to carry out the attack.

Homeland Security Secretary Napolitano stressed last week that despite increased threats to Jewish and Israeli targets worldwide, there are no specific threats against targets in the United States. 

Attacker of the Israeli Embassy in Cairo Welcomed in Iran

Dhia Al-Sawi, who gained popularity in Egypt for his role in attacking the Israeli embassy in Cairo last year, attended a conference in Tehran, Iran, under the patronage of the Iranian leader Ayatollah Khamenei. The conference, held in the Iranian capital last week, was billed as “The International Conference for Youth and the Islamic Awakening.” 

Representing the “Egyptian youth,” Al-Sawi delivered a speech declaring that it was an honor to be involved in the attack on the “Zionist” embassy in September 2011. Asserting his support for Hamas and Hezbollah and his opposition to the State of Israel, Al-Sawi, stated “We are close to liberating Palestine. Just as we attacked the Zionist embassy in Cairo, a day will come, when we will liberate the prisoner mosque of Al-Aqsa.”

Al-Sawi further called on Arab and Muslim nations to unite in support of Iran’s nuclear program. “The Muslim nation and especially the new Arab revolutions should line up to support Iran’s right to possess nuclear knowledge and technology… If the Zio-American alliance and the West succeed in this battle, we will never obtain this technology.”

Al-Sawi’s speech concluded with a request that Khamenei proclaim May 15, Israel’s Independence Day, as a day to cleanse the Arab and Islamic world of Zionist embassies and consulates and attack them. In response to his request, the crowd cheered and chanted, “Death to Israel.”

Hundreds of Islamist leaders from more than 73 countries attended the conference, according to a recording of the event.