Issue No. 841

Inside Al-Shabaab's Information Warfare

Every Thursday, Somalis can tune into Radio Andalus, an Al-Shabaab-affiliated radio station, to listen in to a jihadist commander wax lyrical about their upbringing and commitment to the cause. In one such recent interview with Al-Shabaab's appointed Banaadir Governor, Muse Abdi Arraale, he recounts his life, having grown up in Hargeisa before joining Waxda Al-Shabaab Al-Islamiyya (Islamic Youth Unity group) as a teenager and being imprisoned by the Siad Barre regime. Explicitly tying himself to groups beyond Al-Qaeda proper, such interviews represent an attempt to both position these extremist commanders in Somalia's Islamist history as well as humanise them. Increasingly tapping into discourses of Somali nationalism, Al-Shabaab's prolific propaganda output remains among the most sophisticated of any insurgent group. The London-based Tech Against Terrorism, which monitors extremist online content, assesses that Al-Shabaab is "the largest single producer of terrorist material on the internet."

In its early years, Al-Shabaab primarily relied on websites and traditional news media interviews to express its views, but in the early 2010s, it shifted its focus to social media. It quickly adapted to Facebook and Twitter, and in 2013, the jihadist group live-streamed its infamous attack on the Westgate Mall in Nairobi, where dozens of Kenyans and foreigners were killed. Since then, it has continued to diversify on both platforms as well as content-- today producing videos and text in not only Somali and Arabic, but also in Oromo, Amharic, and Swahili as it seeks to expand its reach beyond Somalia. However, despite such output, the core node of Al-Shabaab's media operations has remained the Al-Kataib Media Foundation, a highly sophisticated production wing that coordinates propaganda and produces vast quantities of audiovisual content. From there, propaganda, often relating to battlefield updates, is disseminated through affiliated websites such as SomaliMemo, which simultaneously cover global issues with an Islamist slant as part of their cover as 'legitimate' news outlets.

Such outlets-- and the handful of 'influencer' accounts that have substantial online followings-- routinely share Al-Kataib's battlefield videos. This, unsurprisingly, remains much of the content that Al-Shabaab disseminates, and there has been a steady uptick in the speed with which it releases imagery from its raids on army bases and ambushes – with previews now often appearing just hours after an event. On the celebration of Eid al-Adha last month, the jihadists released clips from raids in over a dozen locations in a lengthy video. These included such attacks in Aboorey on 25 February, in Bal'ad two days later, and the three arterial bridge towns of Awdheegle, Sabiid, and Bariire in March, as well as a number of mortar attacks on Mogadishu's international airport.

Just this single video reflects the sheer scale of raids conducted by the jihadists across Hiiraan, Lower and Middle Shabelle in recent months. On Eid al-Adha, it was further accompanied by a tranche of videos and images from the towns which they currently hold, including the jarring, sinister photos of children holding replica guns and adorned in jihadist garb. The nearly hour-long compilation of attacks dedicates particular attention to the overrunning of Adan Yabaal in Middle Shabelle on 16 April, a prize jewel of the federal government's 2022 offensive in central Somalia. The video depicts hundreds of government troops on the run and dozens of slain soldiers, spliced in with government footage of the Somali National Army's (SNA) Chief of Defence Forces, Odawa Yussuf Raage, and President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud declaring to frontline troops that Al-Shabaab is virtually defeated. The propaganda tape strongly suggests that Al-Shabaab has access to internal government footage, and is painfully effective at its intended purpose of humiliating the federal government.

But beyond such battlefield imagery, the scope and variety of Al-Shabaab's output range from local issues of clan politics to Somali poetry and history to Israel's war on Gaza and beyond. In an interview with Radio Al-Furqaan in May, for instance, an Al-Shabaab spokesperson accused the federal government of being responsible for inciting intercommunal violence in Middle Shabelle, likely as part of its attempts to exploit Hawiye divisions. And in this interview, and across much of the content, there are explicit contrasts between the areas governed under Al-Shabaab and those under the 'apostates.' Earlier this year, the militant group similarly published a major three-part documentary on the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, in which it lays out a number of arguments about how such international financial institutions have co-opted Somalia's elites and kept the country impoverished. Such films are often displayed at 'movie nights' in villages across the country, where Al-Shabaab operatives play them before 'encouraging' people to sign up for the jihad. 

Again, the content of such films appears to be increasingly designed for Somali audiences rather than as part of the broader milieu of international jihadist, Al-Qaeda-affiliated propaganda. There has also been an increasing emphasis on the supposed 'quality of life' under extremist rule. In another interview on Radio Al-Furqaan, the jihadist Bay region governor, Hamza Abu Jafar, asserts that those living in Al-Shabaab-controlled areas have access to education and healthcare, and that with consistent water, farmers have been able to grow sesame, corn, and other vegetables. 

Despite Al-Shabaab's nationalist posturing, the group has retained its affiliation with Al-Qaeda proper, especially over Palestine. One recent jihadist video entitled 'Attack on apostate militia base' depicting the overrunning of the Wargaadhi military base in Middle Shabelle, opens with a clip of Osama Bin Laden discussing Palestine alongside scenes of recent Israeli military operations in the Gaza Strip. Al-Shabaab's narrator states that the jihadist group is fighting the local "representatives of the Christians and Jews," and includes a clip of a speech by senior commander Mahad Karate stating that they intend to liberate Palestine. The notion that Al-Shabaab is fighting for Palestinians in Somalia is a common refrain and explicitly ties it to a broader jihadist cause.

The jihadists' propaganda is also revealing to the extent to which the militants maintain a keen eye on the scale of international military assistance to Somalia's federal government. Another message from Ali Mohamud Raage (Ali 'Dheere'), Al-Shabaab's spokesperson, delivered on 5 June for Eid al-Adha, covers the funding crisis for the African Union Support and Stabilisation Mission in Somalia (AUSSOM), accurately asserting that the US and other foreign partners have been unable to find a resolution. And Dheere delves further, touching on reports that the US has considered closing its embassy in Mogadishu and the federal government's desperate offer of ports in Bosaaso and Berbera to Donald Trump. Such commentary hints at a more complex reality: that Al-Shabaab is abundantly aware of the geopolitical context in which it operates, and that it will consequently calibrate the timing and manner of its attacks as a function of these broader dynamics. With the financial collapse of AUSSOM a distinct possibility, it may be that the jihadists are simply waiting for the mission to be withdrawn before making a decisive move on the Somali capital.

It is hard not to contrast the sophistication and scale of Al-Shabaab's highly disciplined propaganda with the government's own anaemic output. Time and again this year, the Ministry of Defence has asserted that it has repelled jihadist attacks on Forward Operating Bases before Al-Kataib releases images of its fighters roaming amongst their ruins, executing government troops, and displaying captured arms, ammunition and vehicles. Such discrepancies, dating back years, have led to a widespread perception that Al-Shabaab's battlefield narrative is more credible than Villa Somalia's, a grave concern in any insurgent conflict. Not only has the federal government ceded territory to the extremists, but it is losing the battle of the airwaves by the inane pretence that Al-Shabaab is nearing defeat. 

No war has ever been won by propaganda alone. Not only must Somalia's federal government get more serious about actually fighting the jihadists, it must become more serious about its messaging – if it wants to convince Somalis and foreigners alike that it still deserves their support and sacrifice in waging this bitter counterinsurgency.

The Somali Wire Team