Anti-Terror Ramadan Ad Goes Viral But It Has Gravely Offended Some Muslims

A music video which shows a would-be suicide bomber confronted and apparently deterred by the faithful has made waves in the Middle East. Featuring Emirati pop star Hussain al-Jassmi, the clip beings with the haunting voiceover of a child stating: “I will tell God everything” as a man is seen preparing a bomb.

“That you’ve filled the cemeteries with our children and emptied our school desks,” the child continues as images and footage of ISIS and Al Qaeda-claimed attacks follow.  

Included are clips of a bride who survived an attack at her wedding in Amman that killed 36, a massive Baghdad car bombing and a blast at the Imam Al-Sadiq mosque in Kuwait. The three-minute video ends with footage of a wedding accompanied by cheerful children dressed in white, the threat presumably overcome, as a caption concludes: “We will encounter their hatred with songs of love.”

The advert, by Kuwaiti telecommunications company Zain, was posted online on Friday, just a day before the holy month of Ramadan.

Despite its uplifting message, it has experienced a backlash for its use of an actor playing Omran Daqneesh, a five-year-old Syrian boy who was pictured sitting alone and bloodied in the back of an ambulance in August last year.

The image, taken in Aleppo – which was being targeted daily by Russian and Syrian airstrikes - sent shockwaves around the world and served as a stark reminder of the brutality of the conflict.

But use of it has led to the Arabic hashtag #zaindistortsthetruth, with many pointing out the boy had been wounded in an attack by the regime of Bashar al-Assad, rather than Muslim jihadists.






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