Militants add videos to arsenal

The videos are divisive, but they are also powerful.
CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR
BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Abu Mujtaba is not your typical filmmaker. He doesn't have an agent, he doesn't aspire to move to Hollywood and his interest in film is chillingly practical. He considers "Black Hawk Down" a "great film," for instance, because it shows him how to kill Americans.
Mujtaba is a member of the media department of Muqtada al-Sadr's Shiite militia. He uses a tiny digital Sony Handycam instead of a Kalashnikov and is one of a half-dozen guerrilla filmmakers who record their acts of war to encourage their followers, spread their beliefs and portray what they see as the heroism of al-Sadr's militia, the Mahdi Army.
'Mission'
Mahdi's movie makers have been shooting digital videos during battles in Sadr City and in Karbala, as well as all throughout the standoff in Najaf, which continued Tuesday as Iraq's government warned the militia that it has "hours to surrender" until they are attacked inside the Shrine of Imam Ali.
"This is part of our mission. We film in order to record whatever happens on the battlefield, because we have to get rid of the occupying forces," said Mujtaba, who agreed to speak with the Monitor on condition that his name be changed. "The TV channels always show the Americans strong, saying 'Go, Go, Go!' They never show the American deaths. So these films by the Mahdi Army show how we kill the Americans. They are not invincible."
Growing trend
The Mahdi Army, of course, are only the latest militant movement to have taken up video as a political weapon. From the kidnapping videos of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi to the suicide bomber videos on the West Bank and video-fatwas of Osama bin Laden, video has become a phenomenon for militant Islamic movements around the world.
Distributed through dumpy roadside shops and even over the Internet, guerrilla videos have become a way of bypassing mainstream media and going directly to the masses. Video can be divisive, turning away as many supporters as they attract, but their effect is powerful nonetheless.
"Their use of video is part of a larger trend. It just shows their level of sophistication," said Marc Sageman, a former CIA case officer in Pakistan and author of the book "Understanding Terror Networks." "This tells me that they are dynamic ... as opposed to fading old terrorist groups. Their new members tend to be middle class, well educated folks, and not poor ignorant young men."
The Mahdi Army's films are sold on cheap CDs (for about 16 cents each) and have a shaky-handed roughness similar to many a late-night police-car-chase videos in the United States. But the images and the messages they contain are violent -- and for Mahdi Army supporters, addictive.
Although the Mahdi movie makers are capturing battle scenes in Najaf and throughout Iraq, the videos are sold primarily in Sadr City, a Shiite slum of 2.5 million in Baghdad, where Iraqi police don't tread and are unable to shut down the stores selling the Mahdi Army propaganda designed to recruit new members.