Ali Barakat

Ali Barakat (born 1980) is a Lebanese singer known for his support of Hezbollah, a Shia Islamist political party and paramilitary group in Lebanon.

Biography Barakat is the son of Mohammed Barakhat. He is from Southern Lebanon, and his career began in 1997 at age 17 with songs resisting Israel's occupation of the region during the South Lebanon conflict.

Known for his pro-Hezbollah stance, Barakat rose to prominence in 2013 during Hezbollah's involvement in the Syrian civil war, with his music videos receiving hundreds of thousands of views on YouTube.

According to MEMRI, Barakat said in 2021 that he was willing to become a suicide bomber upon the request of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah.

In August 2022, after journalist Dima Sadek made a satirical post on Twitter about Iran's involvement in the stabbing of Salman Rushdie, Barakat released a video saying: "Everyone who believes that Khomeini and Soleimani are sacred will know what to do with Dima Sadek." Sadek then began receiving violent threats online.

Music

BuzzFeed News described Barakat's songs as "a mix of battle anthems and Arabic pop, turbo-charged with Shiite imagery". In 2014, Barakat posted a music video celebrating Iranian military commander Qasem Soleimani, showing him with the deceased Hezbollah soldier Jihad Mughniyah. Barakat released the song "For God’s Sake, Oh Sayyed Let’s Go" in October 2023, encouraging Nasrallah to "strike and destroy Tel Aviv."