to grant Al-Manar a license after having been requested to do so by then Syrian president Hafiz al-Asad. Al-Manar received the license in July 1997. On 24/25 June 1999 the IAF launched two massive air raids across Lebanon. One of the targets was the al-Manar radio station’s offices in a four storey building in Baalbek which was completely demolished. The attacks also hit Beirut’s power stations and bridges on the roads to the south. An estimated $52 million damage was caused. Eleven Lebanese were killed as well as two Israelis in Kiryat Shmona. According to the US Department of Treasury, Al Manar is the media arm of the Hezbollah. The station manager Muhammad Afif Ahmad, said that Al Manar belongs to Hezbollah culturally and politically. By 2004, Al Manar was estimated to hold 10-15 million viewers daily worldwide. Satellite broadcasting During the 1990s, the popularity of satellite broadcasting greatly increased in the Arab world and in Lebanon. The first Lebanese station to use this technology was Future Television, launching Future International SAT in 1994, while LBCI and the Lebanese government followed by launching LBCSAT and Tele Liban Satellite respectively. In order to compete with these emerging stations, and in order to find an international audience, Al-Manar announced its intention to launch a satellite channel on 9 March 2000. Muhammad Ra'd, a Hezbollah member of parliament and al-Manar's largest shareholder, submitted the request to the minister of transmission, which was approved in April 2000. Although the launch of the satellite station was originally planned for July, the date was moved up in order to coincide with the end of the Israeli occupation of South Lebanon on 25 May. This success led other television stations to follow in launching satellite stations, including Murr TV in November 2000, but it was shut down for "violating an election law prohibiting propaganda" – a fate which al-Manar did not meet, although its programming was also considered propaganda by many analysts . ArabSat, a leading communications satellite operator in the Middle East, headquartered in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, was at first wary about collaborating with al-Manar, because of the station's Shi'a agenda – the two companies agreed, however, that the programming would be adapted to the pan-Arab audience, leading to a slight difference between the local broadcast and the one via satellite. At first, only three hours of satellite programming were broadcast per day, but by December