Wednesday, November 21, 2012
London, Nov. 21 (ANI): Terrorists in Somalia have released full-length documentaries that feature a masked narrator with a British accent, as part of a publicity drive designed to attract Western recruits.
The videos feature suicide bombers, the corpses of African peace-keepers and describes military operations by the militant group Al-Shabaab, which is closely linked to Al-Qaeda.
The footage is the latest addition to a well-oiled media machine, which has attracted nearly 16,000 followers to its English-language Twitter account since it was set up last December, The Telegraph reports.
According to the paper, it is currently unclear whether the reporter is the same man behind the Twitter account and a press office that has churned out online press releases giving updates on battles and “martyred” fighters in recent months.
In the latest 43-minute video, “In the Shade of the Shariah”, first released in May, the same reporter visits Baidoa, a city taken by Al-Shabaab militants from Ethiopian soldiers in 2009 before its recapture in February. The video features a clip of a suicide bomber called Abu Ayoub from “Europe” who speaks in English, the paper said.
The reporter praises him as one of “dozens of young men who had left behind the comfort of their homes and families in Europe and the United States in order to take part in the jihad against the Ethiopian invaders,” the paper added.
The video is apparently dedicated to the “martyr” Anwar al-Awlaki, one of the leaders of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsular (AQAP) who was killed in a drone attack in Yemen last September, the paper concluded. (ANI)