Libya Snapshot: The TV Producer Keeping Qaddafi on the Air (Black)

Former Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi may be getting a bad press these days, but there is one media figure who is still a fan. Ian Black of The Guardian presents the man who is keeping Muammar --- wherever he might be --- on the air:

If you are a recently deposed Arab dictator, on the run but still trying to galvanise armed resistance to your enemies, then Misha'an al-Jabouri is the man to call.

Jabouri, an Iraqi exile who runs al-Rai satellite TV in Syria, had Muammar Gaddafi on the line at 4 a.m. on Thursday, rallying his supporters, attacking his opponents as "rats and scumbags", vowing "never to leave the land of his ancestors", and denying claims he had already fled Libya for neighbouring Niger.

The former MP was self-effacing about his scoop and unembarrassed about throwing a media lifeline to the world's most wanted man. It was the fourth time he has spoken to Gaddafi – sounding "strong and confident" – since Tripoli fell to the Nato-backed rebels last month.

Jabouri was taking a break after finishing his late-night show when the colonel rang.

"I am sure he was calling from Libya though I can't say exactly where he is," Jabouri told The Guardian by phone from Damascus. Saif al-Islam and Mutasim, another of Gaddafi sons, were also still in Libya, but not with their father, he said.

"Gaddafi does not like making recordings and we were worried that Nato might be able to trace his location," he added.

Jabouri says the station's role was to support the fight against all foreign occupations – in Iraq, Palestine or Libya.

"Our channel has relations with all the leaders of resistance in the Middle East," he said. "I was against Saddam Hussein but when Iraq was occupied I fought the occupation. Now it is the same with Gaddafi."

Gaddafi's messages have been aired on another channel called al-Muqawamah [The Resistance], possibly using an outside broadcast van whose Libyan operators, Jabouri confirmed, were trained by al-Rai staff.

"I do not know if the transmission is carried out from a house, a tent, a desert, or the centre of Tripoli," he told the Saudi-owned paper al-Sharq al-Awsat, "but I know that it is difficult to detect."

Al-Muqawamah only began broadcasting on 1 September, airing statements by Gaddafi and Saif-al Islam. Otherwise it just shows loops of archive footage of attacks against coalition troops in Iraq. BBC Monitoring believes al-Muqawamah may in fact have been based in Syria.

Nilesat, the Egyptian satellite TV provider, has denied transmitting either station after coming under pressure from Nato governments to stop carrying Libyan state channels such as al-Jamahiriyah TV.

A third pro-regime channel called al-Uruba [Arabism] – also the name of a Tripoli football team – has broadcast several Gaddafi messages. It went off air in late August, though Jabouri said at the time that it would shortly resume service from Cyprus or Venezuela.

Jabouri said al-Rai had been able to build on the expertise he had acquired running the now-defunct al-Zawra channel, which Iraq's Sunni resistance used to broadcast satellite statements and programmes, and had escaped US jamming.

Arab sources say Gaddafi invested heavily in recent years in radio and TV infrastructure, including mobile outside broadcast units, long before the February uprising in Benghazi, probably based in Sirte, still a stronghold of the old regime.

"Gaddafi has always been obsessed by the media," said an Arab observer who knows Libya well. "In the Arab world coups often began at the TV station."

Arabic media have quoted "informed sources" as saying that Gaddafi bought al-Rai for $25m and arranged for an associate, Ahmed al-Shater, to become chairman of its board. Jabouri dismissed this as "propaganda", but admitted Libya had paid him smaller sums, totalling less than $1m.

"Gaddafi is not generous," he said, "but we would have supported him anyway. We are proud of our record."

In 2008 Jabouri and his Syrian wife were hit by US sanctions prohibiting Americans from doing business with them and freezing their US assets. The move followed accusations that al-Zawra was showing footage of attacks on US soldiers in Iraq.

Jabouri clearly feels secure in Syria, where the Assad regime has far bigger problems than al-Rai. It seems unlikely to heed US and British complaints about helping Gaddafi keep in touch with supporters in his hour of greatest need.