Several GP readers from Down Under wrote in to let us know that an Australian news magazine show called MediaWatch recently covered the controversy over the so-called Battlefield 2 Jihad Video. GamePolitics played a major part in busting that story wide open a couple of weeks back thanks primarily to correspondent Colin McInnes' revealing interview with the creator of the video, a Dutch gamer by the name of Samir.

In their investigative report, MediaWatch quoted liberally from our Samir interview and even flashed some GP screen shots. The show also provided a link to the full GP article. Although MediaWatch unfortunately referred to us as the "LiveJournal website" and not GamePolitics, we're still happy to see our coverage getting picked up by T.V. news.

By the way, Reuters, which started the controversy with its initial flawed coverage of the House Select Intelligence Committee hearing, has finally gotten around to its own interview with Samir. The Reuters reporter, who apparently plied Samir with lunch at Burger King, didn't get nearly as much information as Colin.

Want to talk about it? You can discuss this story via the "comments" feature (click below), or in the new GamePolitics Forums...

Was an elite congressional intelligence committee shown video footage from an off-the-shelf retail game and told by the Pentagon and a highly-paid defense contractor that it was a jihadist creation designed to recruit and indoctrinate terrorists?

It's looking more and more like that is the case.

The bizarre story began to unfold last week when Reuters reported that the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence was shown video footage of combat action which was represented as a user-modified version (or "mod") of Electronic Art's best-selling Battlefield 2, a modern-day military simulation which features combat between U.S. forces and those of the fictitious Middle East Coalition (MEC) as well as the People's Republic of China.

Reuters quoted a Pentagon official, Dan Devlin, as saying, "What we have seen is that any video game that comes out... (al Qaeda will) modify it and change the game for their needs."

The influential committee, chaired by Rep. Peter Hoekstra (R-MI), watched footage of animated combat in which characters depicted as Islamic insurgents killed U.S. troops in battle. The video began with the voice of a male narrator saying, "I was just a boy when the infidels came to my village in Blackhawk helicopters..."

Several GP readers immediately noticed that the voice-over was actually lifted from Team America: World Police, an outrageous 2004 satirical film produced by the creators of the popular South Park comedy series. At about the same time, gamers involved in the online Battlefield 2 community were pointing out the video footage shown to Congress was not a mod of BF2 at all, but standard game footage from EA's Special Forces BF2 add-on module, a retail product widely available in the United States and elsewhere.

GamePolitics has been seeking comment on the video from the Pentagon and Science Applications International Corp (SAIC), a defense contractor based in San Diego. Committee chair Hoekstra's office referred GP back to the committee for comment. A call there had not been returned by press time.

According to Reuters, the U.S. government is paying SAIC $7 million to monitor Islamist web sites, which is where they apparently discovered a copy of the footage. However, the video can also readily be accessed via links found in the user forums of the popular Planet Battlefield site, operated by IGN Entertainment of Brisbane, California.

It is unclear whether SAIC vetted the origin of the video before showing it to key members of Congress and representing it as a terrorist recruiting tool.

But GP correspondent Colin McInnes has investigated the origin of the video. On behalf of GamePolitics, Colin tracked down "Sonic Jihad," the creator of the video for this revealing interview, conducted via e-mail. The video creator's screen name is apparently a tribute to an album called Sonic Jihad, by an American rapper who performs under the name Paris.

CM: Can you tell us a little about yourself?

SJ: I am Samir. I was born and raised in Holland. But my parents are from Moroccan origin. I'm 25 years old. I have a master degree in management, economics and law. I work for a hospital as a quality manager implementing the ISO quality certificate. My hobbies are Battlefield 2, movies and Thai-Boxing.
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Hey, Battlefield 2 fans!!

GamePolitics is now hosting our very own BF2 server for your enjoyment. We're starting things off with a 16-player map rotation featuring the two most popular urban levels from BF2 (Strike at Karkand, Mashtuur City).

You'll find GP on there from time to time. You'll have no trouble figuring out who I am. I must warn you, however, I am deadly with anti-tank weapons.

Our able server admins, clockworklime and $tumpy, will make sure you enjoy your BF2 experience. And hey, if there is interest in starting up a GP clan, we'd be cool with that.

If you're a BF2 fan, please join us. The server name is GamePolitics.com, of course, and the server IP address is 209.40.96.129.

NOTE: Bumping this just to make sure all the BF2 fans who read GP get a chance to see the news about our new server.