AP Corrects on Iranian Support for Global Terrorism

CAMERA’s Israel office yesterday prompted correction of an Associated Press article which had erroneously stated that “Iran remains on the State Department’s list of sponsors of terrorism for its support of anti-Israel groups” (“US: Iran complying with nuclear deal but defying its spirit”).
 

In fact, according to the State Department’s Country Reports on Terrorism 2015 (the most recent available report):

Iran remained the foremost state sponsor of terrorism in 2015, providing a range of support, including financial, training, and equipment, to groups around the world – particularly Hizballah. Iran continued to be deeply involved in the conflict in Syria, working closely with the Asad regime to counter the Syrian opposition, and also in Iraq where Iran continued to provide support to militia groups, including Foreign Terrorist Organization Kata’ib Hizballah. In addition, it was implicated for its support to violent Shia opposition group attacks in Bahrain. Iran was joined in these efforts by Hizballah, which continued to operate globally, as demonstrated by the disruption of Hizballah activities in Peru in 2014 and Cyprus in 2015.

Readers could wrongly understand from AP’s misleading characterization of Iran’s activity that the country’s mischief entails support for Students for Justice in Palestine, Breaking the Silence, Al Haq and the like.
 
Iran remains on the State Department’s list of state sponsors of terrorism for its support for Hezbollah and other Shia militia groups, including in Iraq, Syria and Bahrain.
In response to communication from CAMERA, editors commendably amended the text, updating the article to report accurately:

Iran remains on the State Department’s list of state sponsors of terrorism for its support for Hezbollah and other Shia militia groups, including in Iraq, Syria and Bahrain.

 
CAMERA’s timely action and AP’s quick correction of yesterday’s wire story underscores the value of the organization’s work monitoring and responding to wire stories in the same news cycle as they appear. With this preemptive work, CAMERA’s Israel office helps prevent misinformation from appearing in media outlets around the world.
 
In addition, Time.com, which had run AP’s error, commendably corrected after CAMERA was in touch with editors. The original erroneous text as it originally appeared on Time is followed by the corrected paragraph, which now appears.
 
 
 
 
 
For additional AP corrections prompted by CAMERA, please see here.
 
July 20: CAMERA’s UK Media Watch Prompts Correction in Guardian
 
CAMERA’s UK Media Watch today prompted correction of the AP article appearing in The Guardian. A screen shot of the original article, followed by the corrected version, in which editors removed the misleading reference to Iranian “support of anti-Israel groups,” appear below.
 
 
In addition, editors appended a note to the bottom of the article notifying readers that the post was amended “to update the reference to the US state department’s list of state sponsors of terrorism.”

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