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from Reuters on Wednesday, March 19, 2003

BEIRUT (Reuters) - In a dimly lit, camouflaged room draped with flags of the Lebanese guerrilla group Hizbollah, a group of men calmly fire rounds at the head of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.

But no one shoots back.

The room is in an Internet cafe adapted for marketing a computer game made by Hizbollah to reflect battles between the Israeli army and the group, which withdrew from south Lebanon in 2000 after a 22-year occupation.

Cafe owner Emad said he placed plastic rifles on the walls and stacked sandbags at the entrance to transform the room into a mock bunker to generate interest in the game.

"We wanted to create a military atmosphere to complement the game. Guys like stuff like this," he told Reuters. Eight-year-old Hussein Osman said he liked the game because it featured real fighters and "because it kills Israelis."

"I can be a resistance fighter, even though in real life I don't want to do that," he said.

Washington deems Hizbollah a "terrorist" group and blames it for the 1983 suicide bombings on its Marines barracks and Beirut embassy as well as kidnapping Westerners in the 1975-1990 civil war.

Hizbollah's Internet center created the game, Special Force, in commemoration of the battles of the Shi'ite Muslim group whose attacks helped force Israeli troops out of Lebanon.

"Pursue your enemy from position to position. Take part in making victory," says an ad promoting the game on Hizbollah's al-Manar television.

MEDAL FROM HIZBOLLAH

The center's Bilal az-Zein said the game "tells an abbreviated story of the resistance." First players train at a war college to use guns and grenades by aiming at pictures of Sharon, as well as Israeli Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz and former Defense Minister Benyamin Ben-Eliezer. Players get a medal from Hizbollah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah after completing their cyber training.

At the next stage, they break through an Israeli position in south Lebanon and salute pictures of real-life "martyrs" killed at the same spot. Finally, players fight Israeli troops and blow up helicopters. When Israelis are killed, they yell "you killed me" in Hebrew. Zein said the game showed the "integrity of the resistance and fighting the occupation." Another game is also in the works.

"The goal is to create an alternative to similar Western games where Arabs and Muslims are portrayed as terrorists," he said.

"It lets zealous youth, or those who didn't get the chance to be part of the resistance, to participate," Zein said, adding it was not intended to intimidate Israel.

But the young players at the Internet cafe are more defiant.

"This game reminds us of the fighters and their suffering. It also entertains us and sends the Jews a message of defiance," said Maher Khalil, 22.

"To me it's a message more than a game," he said.

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