Security agents scramble to cut al-Shabaab online link

A twitter account allegedly operated by a Kenyan to spread al-Shabaab propaganda and which police claim was used to claim responsibility for Mpeketoni killings, has been suspended.

Police announced on Wednesday also they had arrested Ishmael Omondi for operating the twitter handle @HSMPress_.

The handle was quiet for most of Thursday until around 4pm, when new tweets were posted.

Omondi was released from custody late on Thursday without charge. Earlier, the tweets had claimed the attack was carried out by al-Shabaab.

But after the government said it was politically instigated, the account’s owner tweeted: “It would be interesting to see Ole Lenku’s response when Mpeketoni kidnap victims are publicly paraded in Barawe, Somalia.”

The accounts had more than 3,000 tweets and 340 photos and videos and more than 10,000 followers.

Al-Shabaab has been tweeting since December 2011, soon after Kenyan forces entered Somalia in pursuit of al-Shabaab militants.

At the time, it was involved in a major online war with Kenya Defence Forces (KDF) spokesman Major Chirchir. However, the account was later suspended, but al-Shabaab soon announced it was back online.

In the past, terrorists groups like al-Qaeda and the Taliban used to make video recordings and send them to selected media outlets, often Al Jazeera’s Arabic network.

But the posting that justify the killing of innocent people has shown it is tough to police the Internet in a world that lacks consensus on how much freedom for getting or posting information individuals should enjoy.