Friday, December 9, 2011

Tweeting war: Somalia’s Al Shabab joins Twitter

Published On Thu Dec 08 2011
A Somalian Transitional Federal Government  soldier walks past the site of a suicide bomb explosion in Mogadishu Tuesday.
A Somalian Transitional Federal Government soldier walks past the site of a suicide bomb explosion in Mogadishu Tuesday.
MOHAMED ABDIWAHAB HAJIABIKAR/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
Image
By Michelle Shephard National Security Reporter
Somalia’s war — or its propaganda war, anyway — is increasingly being fought 140 characters at a time.
Twitter is the latest tool for terrorist groups and foreign forces alike as they attempt to harness the power of social media that helped drive revolutions this year across the Arab world.
Al Shabab, the Somalia-based militant Islamic group that espouses Al Qaeda ideology, created a stir on Twitter this week when it began posting under the name @HSMPress (Harakat Al-Shabaab Al Mujahideen Press Office).
“An army without experience, clear strategy & objective is fragile to winds of resistance & slightest confrontation precipitates defeat,” read one tweet Thursday criticizing Kenya’s month-long battle with the Shabab in southern Somalia.
The origins of the account, which was created Sept. 16 but issued its first tweets this week, remain unconfirmed. But a news release from the group’s purported media arm was emailed Wednesday with the subject line: “Follow HSM Press Office on Twitter!”
If indeed endorsed by the Shabab, it is the group’s latest strike in the hearts-and-minds battle for Somalia after its popularity plummeted this year with the devastating famine. Many Somalis blame the Shabab for creating the humanitarian crisis by blocking outside emergency food aid.
The group held a well-publicized photo op in southern Somalia in October as Shabab leaders stood alongside an “Al Qaeda emissary” to distribute much-needed food aid.
But it’s unlikely these tweets will have much impact inside Somalia.
“Most people, when you say, ‘Shabab’s on Twitter,’ they say, ‘What’s Twitter?’ ” said 20-year-old Canadian Abdikarim Ahmed in a phone interview Thursday from Mogadishu, where he is teaching computer skills to the city’s police department.
Cellphone text messages are far more popular in Somalia — where almost everyone has a mobile phone but few have access to the Internet.
Ahmed believes the group’s aim with Twitter is to reach Somalia’s diaspora here in Canada, the U.S., the U.K. and elsewhere, hoping to lure foreign recruits into its ranks.
That’s one reason Western security services, including those in Canada, mine Twitter for intelligence. In the U.S., the CIA has created its own team affectionately dubbed the “vengeful librarians” to comb through open source material, the Associated Press revealed last month.
Canadian Security Intelligence Service spokeswoman Tahera Mufti said “virtual communities” created by terrorist groups online are a “big concern.”
“Members of terrorist networks can now exchange knowledge and tradecraft without having to maintain the operational security of traditional safe houses,” she wrote in an email to the Star.
She added: “Violent extremists are among the most sophisticated users of new media and social media anywhere.”
Just 24 hours after @HSMPress wrote its first tweet, the account had more than 600 followers from around the world — although the initial reaction from the Twittersphere was mainly derisive.
“Now that #Alshabaab are on Twitter they can do us a favour. Why don’t ya’ll join #Foursquare! That will be awesome!!” one Nairobi resident wrote, referring to the social application that pinpoints users’ location.
Kenya’s Defence Forces spokesperson Major Emmanuel Chirchir already created a social media stir earlier this fall when he began giving pre-attack warnings from the Twitter handle @MajorEChirchir.
In a November tweet, Chirchir named 10 towns (although he listed the name of the same town twice, in English and Somali) that would soon “be under attack continuously,” warning civilians to flee. And he was widely ridiculed after another tweet that read: “Any large concentration and movement of loaded donkeys will be considered Al-Shabaab activity.”
The Shabab had been using donkeys to transport weapons, but the tweet became the butt of jokes in the local media, including an article in Kenya’s Daily Nation headlined: “Loaded donkeys and tweeting majors: All seems to be well on the war front.”

No comments:

Post a Comment