Islam's Billy Graham takes on Al-Qaeda

Marking a shift in strategy, the Yemeni government has launched a coordinated media campaign aimed at countering the message of an increasingly active Al Qaeda offshoot, recruiting one of the Arab world’s most popular televangelists in the process.

Amr Khaled, a charismatic and moderate Egyptian preacher, is known as the Arab world’s Billy Graham. Khaled, together with the Yemeni government and numerous local media outlets, this week launched a full-scale media blitz to protect the country’s large, and often disenfranchised, population of young people from Al Qaeda’s extremist ideology.

“The purpose of this project is to uproot extremism and spread moderation, to show the true face of Islam, and show a bright picture of Yemen to the world," Khaled said at the campaign's opening ceremony here in the southern port city of Aden.

An entourage of icons from the world of Islamic preaching will also embark on an extended media campaign over the next few weeks, delivering a string of speeches propagated through Yemen’s media outlets, forums, websites, mosque pulpits and television channels.

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