Dia al-Kawwaz

How Embarrassing!

Picture this...

You report to the international news agencies that 11 of your family members in Iraq have been slaughtered!

You hold several press conferences and gain great sympathy.


(AFP)

You become an overnight sensation with the antiwar media.

Reporting news in third-world countries like Iraq can be a difficult task, especially for Western journalists who are unfamiliar with the language and the culture of the region. As a result, many times the media get tricked by terrorist sympathizers who want to make America look bad. Things are further compounded by the left-wing bent of most Western journalists which makes them, like Dan Rather and his Burkett documents, suceptible to believe false stories they want to be true.

Fortunately, anti-American lies don't always get as far as the Haditha "murders" did. Witness the tale of Dia al-Kawwaz, a jihadist supporter journalist who falsely claimed (h/t Gateway Pundit) that some of his relatives were massacred, even going so far as to hold a fake funeral service for them. Kawwaz's plans were foiled, however, when his family turned up, very much alive:

The angry family of an Iraqi journalist went on local television on Wednesday to blast him for claiming they had been massacred three days ago by Shiite militiamen in Baghdad.

"We are still alive. Thank God!" the sister of the journalist said, before bursting into tears.