Terrorist Organisation Releases Violent Video Game To Gain New Recruits

People often say that violent video games are to blame for all our ills - as if people who play Grand Theft Auto are the types to regularly go around bazookaing buses in real life.

But in this case, the nay-sayers may have a point as the terrorist group Hezbollah has released a video game aimed at indoctrinating young people into enacting violence on its behalf.

The first-person shooter (FPS) game, called Holy Defense, lets players play the role of a Hezbollah fighter in the midst of a battle to gain control of a Middle Eastern city.

The final battle of the game apparently takes place in Baalbek, a city in north-east Lebanon believed to be a stronghold of the Hezbollah movement.

Hezbollah has described Holy Defense 'not just a mere game, but a simulation aimed at documenting a stage of the holy defence confronting the American-Zionist project'.

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Ironically, the enemies that the player is tasked with gunning down are meant to be fighters from fellow terrorist group ISIS. The game is meant to appeal to teenagers - if not younger kids - and is on sale for just £3.56 ($5).

The website of the Lebanon-based Hezbollah is full of previous first person shooter games including games where players are tasked with killing Israeli soldiers.

In a statement, the terror group said the game was meant to 'instill in the hearts of young Lebanese Shiites a collective awareness of their identity, culture and history as Muslims'.

The terror group has even been openly advertising the game online in an attempt to get young Muslims to share its violent goals.

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While releasing video games has been a tactic also used by other terror groups trying to indoctrinate youngsters - most notably by Hamas and ISIS - in some cases games have inspired players to take the fight against terrorists instead.

Last year one video gamer sacked off his job to fly to Syria to fight ISIS, claiming he survived due to the skills he learnt from playing Call of Duty for up to thirteen hours a day.

American gamer John Duttenhofer, from Colorado, travelled to Syria last April to join the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) in Raqqa, the city which was finally liberated from ISIS in October.

Duttenhofer left Syria after Raqqa was liberated, spending time in Europe before returning home to Colorado where he is now trying to re-adapt to normal life.

Topics: video games, terrorism, GAMING, Technology, ISIS

Chris Ogden

Chris Ogden is a journalist at LADbible. He graduated from the University of East Anglia with degrees in English Literature and Creative Writing before completing his NCTJ Diploma in Multimedia Journalism. Chris has previously written for the independent culture magazine The Skinny, among other publications.

@TheThumbCompass