Al-Shabaab and Kenya Twitter War

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Al-Shabaab and Kenya have been constantly exchanging insults through twitter, regarded as a media war. Emmanuel, Kenya’s army spokesman who currently has a twitter account with 10,000 followers, posts updates on the military state of play in the incursion into Somalia. With the screen name @HSMPress Al-Shabaab has joined the twitter community, it has currently posted 80 times and has about 3000 followers. Starting it first tweet in Arabic with a Qu’ranic phrase saying “ In the name of god, the most gracious, the most merciful.” Al-Shabaab has released its messages in fluent English. In recent months, Al-Shabaab has been running sophisticated media operations, including press releases in English with photos attached to them. Through this medium they have exaggerated claims such as total number of military victories. HSMPress has been self described as “Harakat Al-Shabaab Al Mujahideen is an Islamic movement that governs South & Cen. Somalia & part of the global struggle towards the revival of Islamic Khilaafa.”

Source: Al-Shabaab in war of words with Kenyan army on Twitter

Reliability: 9

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