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Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq » Hizballah Cavalcade: The Songs of Liwa’a Abu Fadl al-Abbas: Militant Iraqi Shia Music & Syria

Remember the war against Franco? / That’s the kind where each of us belongs.

Though he may have won all the battles, / We had all the good songs.

–        Tom Lehrer, “The Folk Song Army”, 1965.

The author has counted at least thirty different songs available online which have been produced to praise LAFA. Most of these songs were not included due to their lack of popularity in LAFA social media circles.

When journalist Nicholas Blanford first announced Iraqi Shia were fighting alongside the forces of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, his main source for this assessment was a music video.[1] From a period extending from fall 2012-summer 2013, Shia Islamist organizations operating in Syria have released more music videos and have been actively using them in a complex messaging strategy.

The utilization of musical propaganda has been a key propaganda strategy used by radical Shia Islamist organizations.[2] Lebanese Hizballah has employed a number of bands to sing songs promoting the group’s narrative since the 1980s. In 2008, the Iraqi government found the songs made for Muqtada al-Sadr so threatening, they banned them.[3]

Due to Shia Islamist involvement in the Syrian Civil War, Iraqi Shia who favor Muqtada al-Sadr and pro-Iranian Shia parties, have produced a wide variety of songs praising Liwa’a Abu Fadl al-Abbas (LAFA). These songs are often overtly sectarian and offer blatant threats against the Syrian rebels.

The Iraqi-produced music videos, created to honor Iranian-backed Shia fighters attached to LAFA, also occupy a strange ideological gray-area. The singers often praise and or have praised Muqtada al-Sadr and the Liwa’a al-Yum al-Mawud (the Promised Day Brigade). However, Sadr has not publicly supported Shia militiamen fighting in Syria.[4] Some of the same musicians who sing for LAFA, have also backed organizations which have fought Sadr, namely Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq (AAH).[5]

Other Iraqi influences are quite extensive in newly made music about LAFA, including the musical rhythm styles. Demonstrating that these songs are aimed at an Iraqi audience, they are often sung in the Iraqi dialect of Arabic. All of the singers and songwriters who have made these songs have also had extensive background experience singing for Shia Islamist organizations, performing religious songs, and have gained the majority of their fans from their online presence.

By Phillip Smyth (psmyth@jihadology.net) – Click here for a PDF version of this post

NOTE: For prior parts in the Hizballah Cavalcade series you can view an archive of it all here.