Broadcasters affiliated with designated terrorist organizations or sanctioned foreign states were found on 17 of the 25 piracy platforms examined for a report by the Digital Citizens Alliance (DCA) and cybersecurity firm risk3sixty.
All were accessible over U.S. Internet connections. Al-Manar, Hezbollah’s official broadcaster, was most prevalent, appearing on all 17 services carrying such programming. The US State Department placed Al-Manar on the State Department’s Terrorist Exclusion List in 2004 and the Treasury Department designated it as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist entity in March 2006.
The investigation documents how piracy platforms provide organizations associated with terrorist organizations or other U.S. adversaries a commercial distribution system, operating outside U.S. law, that grants them access to paying American subscribers who never went looking for them.
Known distributors
The report identifies a number of distributors that carry pirate bundles which include sanctioned channels. These include:
Sansat VIP: A credit-based reseller ($65 for 60 credits up to $3,500 for 6,000 credits, plus a $35/year retail tier), the entity that actually carries Al-Manar is an upstream server operator.
Wish IPTV: Targeting francophone and Anglo-Irish markets, it’s registered through Namecheap and fronted through Cloudflare. The registrant is shielded behind a privacy proxy based in Iceland, and ScamAdviser flags it as a likely “façade.”
Lion OTT: Has an Android app offering about 20,000 live channels, 98,000 movies, 24,000 series and carries Al-Manar, Al-Aqsa TV, and Al- Masirah simultaneously.
Several others were also profiled
Methodology
Researchers used a combination of platform access testing, broadcast content review. Researchers from risk3sixty examined 25 piracy-based IPTV provider websites and attempted to access each one’s channel catalog through whatever sign-up process the service offered – a free trial, a paid subscription, or open registration – using a U.S.-based connection throughout. Each accessible service’s channel list was checked against broadcast outlets tied to designated terrorist organizations or hostile foreign states.
Where terrorist-linked or hostile- state channels were identified on a piracy service, translated broadcast segments and publicly reported statements from those same outlets were reviewed to characterize the nature of the content being distributed separately from, and in addition to, the access-testing exercise.
Every broadcast-content citation is content aired directly by catalogued platforms named in the reviewed source material, including Al-Manar, Al-Aqsa TV, Al-Masirah, Aletejah, or Al- Ghadeer.
Why it matters
In addition to the familiar use cases of credential fraud, service and content theft, advertising fraud, and consumer fraud, piracy also enables some of the most dangerous terrorist organizations to broadcast into the United States. It’s another avenue to spread their ideology and potentially recruit Americans.
The legal architecture built after 9/11 to keep designated terrorist
entities out of American commerce already exists but has never been pointed at the piracy distribution channels this report documents. The recommendations below start with what federal agencies and private intermediaries can do under authority they already hold, and end with the legislative remedy now before Congress.
Further reading
US-sanctioned terrorist broadcasters distributed on piracy platforms reaching American homes, investigation finds. Press release with link to report. September 10, 2026. Digital Citizens Alliance (DCA) and risk3sixty.
Hostile Signals: How piracy platforms give terrorist organizations and state adversaries a back door into American homes. Report. Published September 2026.
