Ads with an agenda: Lebanon's battle of the billboards

0 Comments | AFP, March, 2008

BEIRUT (AFP) — Hours after Hezbollah commander Imad Mughnieh was killed, huge billboards of his burly face stencilled like the iconic Che Guevara portrait or a photo of him in battle fatigues were printed and ready to display all over Lebanon.

Pictures of this man on America's Most Wanted list are among the first images to greet visitors to the country, lining the road from the airport to downtown Beirut.

Farther inside the capital, assassinated former prime minister Rafiq Hariri, on his own or flanked by his son and political heir Saad, looks down from larger-than-life posters adorning city buildings.

The picture changes again in the northern town of Bsharre, this time with vast signs showing Christian leader Samir Geagea. In the eastern Bekaa region,...