Al Shabaab propaganda war

Business

By Alex Ndegwa

As the defining battles of Afmadow and Kismayu loom large, what Kenya will now have to increasingly deal with is the challenge of telling the truth apart from Al Shabaab propaganda.

Mr Lindsay Kiptines (right)of Foreign Affairs ministry in charge of Horn Of Africa addresses the Press on the situation in Somalia. He is flanked by Col Cyrus Oguna of Defence Forces. Picture: Tabitha Otwori/Standard

On Saturday, the Kenya Defence Forces (KDF) warned for the umpteenth time that the Al Qaeda-linked terror group – which is feeling the heat from twin-assaults by Kenya and Somalia’s Transitional Federal Government forces – had changed their attack tactics and was engaging in a propaganda war to shore up their dwindling support and dampen morale of forces ranged against it.

KDF and allied TFG forces are preparing for a final push on Al Shabaab strongholds, even as ordinary citizens in some regions of the war-torn country and in the Diaspora denounced the militia.

The allied forces have seized swathes of southern Somalia from fleeing insurgents and have focused on patrols, pacification, and humanitarian assistance in liberated areas.

The KDF has, however, cautioned that the assault against the key towns of Afmadow and Kismayu – that are under the control of Al Shabaab – may take a little while longer as the military engages in humanitarian assistance and gathers intelligence in response to new methods adopted by the ragtag group.

With Al Shabaab’s grip on the lawless nation apparently slipping after a month of the KDF operation, the militia group has ratcheted up its rhetoric, mounting parades of its fighters and hardware in Marka, 500km north of Kismayu in a show of force.

In the past week, the insurgents have generated reports – quoted extensively by Somalia and international media – claiming that the ragtag militia had ambushed and inflicted casualties on the Kenyan forces and seized military trucks and equipment.

Fabricated reports

But it is exactly such reports that the Kenya Defence Forces have come out to deny and warn Kenyans and the media about.

This week, military spokesman Major Emmanuel Chirchir made it clear that Al Shabaab had fabricated the reports.

He said the Al Qaeda-linked fighters had been shooting in the air and enacting battle scenes, despite the fact that most of southern Somalia had now largely been snatched from their control without any direct fighting.

"As a new propaganda tactic, Al Shabaab will simulate an attack engagement and then exaggerate it by peddling lies to the media that the KDF and TFG forces were engaged as a result and some of our soldiers have been hurt, killed and their equipment confiscated," Chirchir warned.

Other reports also picked up by international media were that the militia group had acquired modern military hardware, including radar equipment, to counter what they characterised as "aging Kenyan aircraft fleet". However, there has been no independent confirmation of the arms claims.

Change of tack

During a briefing on Saturday, authorities said Al Shabaab had changed tack and its fighters were now carrying out attacks in small bands and using donkeys to move about to avoid detection.

But Kenya reported it had infiltrated the insurgents, adding that some Al Shabaab recruits had turned themselves in to respond to an amnesty offer.

Police Spokesman Eric Kiraithe said, "A lot of young men are now working with us." He added that, Al Shabaab was "losing foothold at a fast rate".

"We are working with quite a number of young men who have responded well to the amnesty. They have given us useful information, some as citizens, and others as refugees who have benefited from Kenya’s benevolence," said Kiraithe.

To underscore the level of the issue at hand, Al Shabaab had a week into Kenya’s military campaign in Somalia displayed on a dusty road in Mogadishu what it said were more than 70 bodies of alleged African Union peacekeepers it claimed had been killed in a showdown in Mogadishu.

An Al Shabaab spokesman, Ali Mohamud Rage, gleefully gave away which audience the parade was intended.

He was quoted telling international media: "This is a message to Kenya that has invaded our country."

However, the African Union Mission in Somalia (Amisom) disputed the figures, insisting that only a dozen of its soldiers were killed.

On Saturday, Colonel Cyrus Oguna, of the Kenya Defence Forces, said Kenya had lost only five soldiers and "a couple others" had been injured.

Col Oguna estimated that "several hundreds" of Al Shabaab fighters had been killed although he acknowledged that it was difficult to give an accurate account, given the militia is not a conventional army.

Another Al Shabaab propaganda tactic in the past has been to claim that Kenya Air Force strikes had inflicted damage on civilian populations in an effort to turn the residents against the KDF.

Last week, Kenya dismissed reports that its warplanes had hit a refugee camp in southern Somalia, leaving five people dead and 45 wounded.

Prime Minister Raila Odinga said Kenyan forces were not targeting Somali civilians and dismissed the reports as propaganda.

"It would be most unfortunate (if it were true) but the information we have is that it’s just Al Shabaab propaganda.

"That is what we have from our own forces," the PM told a news conference in Nairobi with his Somali counterpart.

Somali Prime Minister Abdiweli Mohamed Ali added: "If that happened really and there were civilian casualties, then it’s an unfortunate incident, and we’re sorry about that."

The war on Al Shabaab is no exception to the hackneyed phrase that at every war, the truth is often the first casualty.

It has been argued that every conflict is fought on at least two grounds: The battlefield and the minds of the people via propaganda. Winning wars is also about winning the minds of people, hence the charm offensive by Kenyan troops to offer medical camps and distribute relief aid in liberated regions.

The areas are also turned over to TFG administrators with Kenyan forces determined to banish any perception of an occupying force.

Regular briefs

Although the operation has largely been one "about not seeing (action) https://cdn.standardmedia.co.ke/images", authorities have kept the public abreast with regular briefs.

In 2003 following the 9/11 attacks, the US Government hyped the invasion of Iraq, which was couched as the "war on terror" with the Bush Administration linking then Baghdad strongman Saddam Hussein’s regime to the attacks.

The invasion of Iraq set the bar for "embedded" journalism in which professionals reporting from the frontlines paint a partial, patriotic image of the "war on terrorism".

Back home, local journalists have been embedded with Kenyan forces inside Somalia.

Propaganda expert Nancy Snow adds: "With propaganda, you don’t need facts per se, just the best facts put forward. If these facts make sense to people, then they don’t need proof like one might need in a courtroom."

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