TV spot dissects suicide bombing

CAIRO

A television commercial aimed at thwarting terrorism has reached Middle Eastern TV networks, using high-tech effects to show the anatomy of a suicide bombing in graphic detail.

The $1 million ad is packed with special effects, including the time-suspension technique made popular in the “Matrix” movies to show bodies, cars and broken glass flying in slow motion through the air.

Its sleekness, and the secrecy surrounding its creators and backers, lead some to think the U.S. government is behind it in an effort to woo would-be terrorists away from violence and encourage moderates to take a stronger stand against extremism.

The U.S. government refuses to say clearly whether it’s involved in the commercial, which began airing this summer on Al Arabiya, Lebanese Broadcasting Corp. and several Iraqi channels as violence was raging in Baghdad and the militant group Hezbollah and Israel were at war.

Issandr El Amrani of Cairo, who produces a blog, arabist.net, said the advertisement’s concept is positive, but he’s not sure that the would-be terrorists will watch, much less listen.

The 60-second ad opens with a young boy seeing a man walk by in a crowded market. The man stops and exposes yellow explosives strapped to his body. The boy sees the bombs just before they go off, sending cars flying and people crashing through the windows of a cafe.

The ad then shows the aftermath: wreckage, weeping and fires. It ends with the words “Terrorism has no religion” in Arabic.

A Los Angeles warehouse district filled with 200 cast members stood in for the market during the ad’s filming this year, according to a statement by California-based 900 Frames, which helped produce the commercial.

The ad is on a Web site — www.noterror.info — where viewers can see it and read Koranic verses deploring violence.

But details about who made the ads are scant. Questions to the e-mail address — the site’s only contact information — elicit a standardized response.

A press release issued before the ad’s filming said the project was funded privately by nongovernmental scholars, entrepreneurs and activists living in Iraq and abroad — but did not elaborate.

During the filming, 900 Frames said the group behind it, the Future Iraq Assembly, wanted to remain anonymous.

The group, which also is behind a series of other Iraq-specific ads, describes itself on www.futureiraq.org as “an independent, nongovernmental organization, comprised of a number of scholars, businesspersons, and activists.” The site gave an e-mail address, but no one responded to messages.

The publicist who worked with 900 Frames in May said the studio would not comment to the Associated Press.

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