The man, who remains masked throughout his videos, speaks in fluent English
with a clear London accent and presents breathless reports of battles that the
militant groups have fought against Somali government and foreign forces.
Intelligence sources and terrorism experts believe the man was either born in
Britain or spent considerable time here and that he may have even had some media
training before heading abroad to join the militant network.
The Independent has collected at least three videos in which the man
features. The first – which runs for 11 minutes and is titled "African
Crusaders" – was released in June 2010 and only contains the man's voice. A
second 21 minute long video – "Mogadishu – the Crusader's Graveyard" – was
released a month later and shows the young reporter appearing with his face
covered in front of burning tank that he claims was destroyed by Islamist
fighters.
He disappeared from Al Shabaab propaganda videos until October this year when
he returned with a new documentary called "Battle for Deyniile – the Burundian
Bloodbath". The 33-minute report features footage from the front lines of a
recent battle between militants and African Union peacekeepers on the outskirts
of Mogadishu in which a number of AU troops were known to have perished. Shabaab
fighters display the uniformed corpses of at least twenty fighters that they
claimed belonged to the Ugandan and Burundian peacekeeping forces currently in
control of central Mogadishu.
The documentaries – which were all released through Shabaab's media wing the
al-Kataib Foundation – are a vivid example of the slick propaganda now being
produced by violent Islamists in the Horn of Africa and their determination to
turn the area into a new base for international jihadists.
Britain has become so concerned about the deteriorating security situation
inside Somalia that it has convened a summit for February to discuss what to do
about the failed state. MI5 head Jonathan Evans has repeatedly warned that the
Horn of Africa has become the second most popular terrorist training ground
after Pakistan with Brits of Somali, Pakistani, Yemeni, Bangladeshi and North
African heritage flocking there.
Whitehall sources believe that there are between three to four people working
full time on Shabaab's media wing, one of whom is a Yemeni who previously worked
with al-Qa'ida in the Arabian Peninsula. A second individual is a British
Pakistani – thought to be the reporter who appears in the videos.
The group's latest output represents a tactical shift in the way militant
networks are producing their propaganda in that the more recent productions are
presented as objective news reports, mimicking the way mainstream news
organisations present information.
"Instead of featuring a field commander what we're seeing is supposedly a
journalist reporting the facts on the ground in a dispassionate way whilst
manipulating the narrative to his group's advantage," said Bruce Hoffman, a
leading expert on Islamist terrorism at the University of Georgetown. "You
wouldn't put Shabaab in the top bracket within the pantheon of terror groups
when it comes to strategies or tactics. But their communication techniques are
highly sophisticated."
The Independent sought comment from al-Shabaab through an email account known
to be used by the militants for international enquiries. In a statement the
group said their aim was to inspire Muslims in the West: "We are not able to
reveal the identity or nom de guerre of the person in question but the aim of
our English documentaries is quite simple. With most journalists serving merely
as subservient vessels at the hands of warmongers and politicians, the purpose
of the Harakat Al-Shabaab Al Mujahideen's documentary films is to reveal the
reality of the current warfare in Somalia to the world and, in particular, to
the Muslims living in the Western world."
The statement added: "It is our hope that these English documentaries will
enlighten the Muslims by illuminating the reality of the so-called war on terror
and help further elucidate the events as they really are on the ground –not as
they are erroneously portrayed in the western media."
Shabaab are a brutal off-shoot of the comparatively moderate Islamic Courts
Union which brought a semblance of calm to Somalia after 20 years of fighting
but was thrown out of in 2006 following a US-backed invasion by Ethiopian
troops.
The militant group controls large tracts of southern Somalia and has fought a
vicious insurgency against the country's beleaguered and highly unpopular
transitional government whose writ extends little further than the capital
Mogadishu. They promote a draconian interpretation of Sharia law and have
pledged allegiance to al-Qa'ida and its philosophy of waging violent jihad to
establish a global Islamic caliphate.
After withdrawing their fighters from the capital in August, they have
shifted to more asymmetric tactics such as suicide bombers and improvised
explosive devices. A spate of kidnappings hit northern Kenya prompting Nairobi
to invade from the south claiming that they would eradicate Shabaab. Ethiopia's
military has invaded once more from the north but there has been little sign so
far of any palpable military successes against the militants who have called on
help in repelling "infidel crusaders".
Fearing Somalia is becoming a new gathering point for international
jihadists, the United States has increased drone strikes within the Horn of
Africa operating out of bases in Djibouti, southern Ethiopia and the
Seychelles.
The exact number of foreign fighters within Shabaab's ranks is currently
unknown but western intelligence agencies have watched with alarm as both
hardened veterans and new foreign recruits have flocked to the area.
In early October two 18-year-old Brits from Cardiff were arrested on the
Kenya-Somalia border in what the Kenyan police claimed was an attempt to join up
with Shabaab militants. One of the teens was of Somali extraction, whilst his
friend was believed to be British-Pakistani.
Abdirhman Haji Abdullah, the father of the Somali-British man, gave an
interview to BBC Somali in which he claimed his son had been "brainwashed".
"My son was misled into believing that he was fighting in a holy war," he
said. "He was brainwashed and taken away from us and he was told that he was
going to fight a holy war in Somalia."
The pair were arrested and returned to Britain only because Mr Abdullah went
after his son and alerted the authorities.
Intelligence analysts have commented that Somalia has become an attractive
destination for international militants because it is much easier to infiltrate
than other militant strongholds such as Iraq, the Afghan-Pakistan border and
Yemen.
Shabaab's increasingly sophisticated propaganda releases, meanwhile, have
coincided with the arrival of international jihadists and much of the output
from al-Kataib is now squarely aimed at recruiting fighters from overseas.
Earlier this month the group even appeared on Twitter with an account that has
been used to release passport photos of slain African Union troops and taunt the
Kenyan military with jibes.
Shabaab has made no secret of its desire to welcome foreign fighters. One
recent video features masked militants speaking in an array of languages
including English, Swahili, Swedish and Urdu. One fighter, who uses the nom de
guerre Abu Dujana, claims he is British and speaks with a heavy London accent.
Sitting on a white beach, he calls on Muslims "that are living in the lands of
disbelief, the lands of oppression, to (migrate) to the land of glory, to the
land of (power) to the land of jihad."
The militant group has also released a number of rap-songs by Omar Hammami, a
middle class American with Syrian parentage from Alabama who became increasingly
devout and travelled to Somalia for jihad. Within jihadi circles he is known as
Abu Mansour al-Amriki and is frequently lauded by militants as an example that
western Muslims should follow.
Following the death of Osama bin Laden, Hammami appeared in a video alongside
senior Shabaab leaders and read a speech to honour the slain al-Qa'ida
founder.
Roger Middleton, an expert on Somalia at Chatham House, said he believed
Shabaab's use of a British journalist to present their side of the conflict is
part of a wider strategy to encourage recruits from the West.
"This guy is turning up more and more often in Shabaab releases," he said.
"It's difficult to gauge what kind of effect he has had. The general consensus
is that the number of British Somalis heading to join Shabaab are in their tens
rather than their hundreds. But you do hear stories within the Somali community
of young men just disappearing and the family later finding out that they have
been killed fighting for Shabaab."via
The Independent
The Kenyan government received the acceptance of the ONLF without a
delay since it was the government of Ethiopia not the ONLF that was dragging its
feet for so long from taking the offer of peace talks in the hope that it will
wipe out the ONLF through brute military force. The Somali Region’s (Ogaden
region) resistance to occupation stretches over a century and the region was and
is a battle field between successive Ethiopian governments and national
liberation forces. The region has been treated by the Ethiopian governments over
the years as a buffer zone and its citizens as strangers that have no right in
Ethiopia. 
Human rights organisation’s 
The reigning
Ethiopian government, under premier Zenawi, which the ONLF has to negotiate
with, is an authoritarian state that has no tolerance for pluralistic views in
any shape or form. The politics, military and the economy of Ethiopia is
dominated by his TPLF/EPRDF party which claimed that it won 99.6% of the latest
staged election when it is common knowledge that the reality is on the contrary
-
.jpg)
