By Jay Syrmopoulos

Bilal Abdul Kareem, of On the Ground News, was contracted by CNN to film a documentary called Undercover in Syria. Kareem is a self-proclaimed media activist living in rebel-held Syria and is considered “one of the top English-language propagandists for al-Qaeda’s Syrian affiliate Jabat al-Nusra,” according to an Alternet exposé on Abdul Kareem and his connections to terrorism and CNN.

On June 16 Abdul Kareem went public with his intimate connection to CNN, and its documentary Undercover in Syria. He relayed his frustration with the network, having essentially whitewashed him out of his credit for a documentary he had a large hand in creating for CNN, which won a prestigious Peabody Award.

Abdul Kareem explained how CNN contracted him and his online news outlet, On the Ground News, to film the award-winning documentary.

“This was with CNN and their correspondent Clarissa Ward, which I have big-time respect for, big-time respect as a journalist, as a person,” Abdul Kareem said.

This Undercover in Syria, you can Google it — it won the prestigious Peabody Award, and it won the prestigious Overseas Press Club Award, which are basically the highest awards in journalism for international reporting. Now, [CNN] barely mentioned my name! I’m telling you, somehow CNN must have forgotten that I was the one that filmed it, I guess they forgot that.

Contrary to Abdul Kareem’s statement that “CNN must have forgotten,” the reality is likely much closer to the fact that they intentionally minimized the credit Abdul Kareem received, due to his connections to terrorism – thus becoming a mere footnote in the Peabody Awards press release.

While the Peabody organization praised CNN host Clarissa Ward for “[going] undercover into northern Syria to document Russian influence on the fighting and to navigate the ongoing devastation,” Abdul Kareem was only given credit in small print, despite him being responsible for filming and providing CNN with the documentary footage of Syria.