Former General Aoun & Orange TV Spreading Iranian-inspired Jihadist Propaganda

By Andrew Cochran

The following is a report from "Karim," the CTB Special Correspondent in Lebanon. He last reported for us on October 3.

The joint venture between Hezbollah and the "Free Patriotic Movement" of former General Michel Aoun is growing stronger by the day. Since Hezbollah, a designated terrorist organization by the U.S. Government, and its Al Manar television network are banned from transmitting to the U.S., they are now relying on the media outlet of former General Michel Aoun, Orange TV, to spread Iranian-inspired Jihadist propaganda and ideology.

Orange TV has been airing explosive commentaries in the past month by accusing the editor of the Arabic newspaper Al Muharer Al Arabi, Mr. Nihad Al Ghadri, of "financing" the terrorist group Fatah Al Islam. Mr. Al Ghadri, a Syrian publisher and U.S. citizen who lives in exile in Lebanon, has been outspoken in defense of the Cedars Revolution and has criticized the Assad regime extensively in the pages of Al Muharer. Besides, Ghadri has been among the few supporters of the U.S.' and moderate Arabs' efforts against terrorism. Orange TV has gone on to accuse Mr. Ghadri’s son, Farid, of the Reform Party of Syria, of being a "Zionist spy." Hezbollah's and Aoun's political commissaries have been targeting the Syrian opposition figures, especially those conducting a war of ideas against the Tehran and Damascus regimes.

These propaganda tools of attacking those whose views differ from the Baathists and their sponsors in Iran are well known by the Lebanese and others in the region. Another point in the latest front for the terrorist axis of Iran/Syria and Hezbollah was the fires apparently set throughout Lebanon, creating an ecological near-disaster.

Aoun’s complicity in airing false and inflammatory reports produced by master terror propagandists should be recognized in Washington. Three years ago, the former military commander was roaming the lobbies of Congress and the waiting rooms of think-tanks in Washington, seeking American and Israeli support for his leadership of a "free Lebanon." After his return to Lebanon, freed by the U.S.- and French-sponsored UNSCR 1559, General Aoun turned against his benefactors and allied himself with Hezbollah in order to secure the Presidency of Lebanon.