Propaganda wars

“The blood of our husbands and the body parts of our children are our sacrificial offering.”

Eager to capitalize on an expanding Internet audience, Al-Khansa, a new jihadist online magazine directed exclusively at women, incites women to participate in jihad. The BBC cautiously notes that “most of the articles are written as if by women, although it is not clear if they actually were.”

In recent months, governments and political organizations have joined the increasingly desperate scramble to gain a loyal Internet audience; in order to compete with and provide a counterpoint to Hezbollah’s satellite television channel, al-Manar, and the highly popular Qatar-based Al-Jazeera satellite TV station, America now airs the Arabic language Al-Hurra — which means “the free one,” — television network along with Radio Sawa. With Al-Khansa now joining the cacophony of voices, the propaganda wars are steadily escalating.  
  

Mimi Hanaoka