NAIROBI: The Twitter account of Somalia’s Al Qaeda-linked Shabab insurgents was suspended Friday, days after they posted photographs of a French commando they killed and threatened to execute Kenyan hostages.
A message from Twitter on the English-language @HSMPress account read that the account had “been suspended,” without elaborating.
However, the Shabab’s Somali- and Arabic-language accounts continue to operate, and the extremists used their Arabic account to denounce the suspension as censorship.
“This is new evidence of the freedom of expression in the West,” the message read.
Speaking to AFP on condition of anonymity, a senior Shabab official said that the suspension of their twitter account was making us proud and that their account was “the true source of valuable information that reflected the true picture of Somalia.”
The Shabab official said “that the cry of the French and Kenyans forced the account to be suspended.”
“We have thousands of ways to pass our message...it is unfortunate that organizations that call themselves the guardians of freedom of expression are silent about the closure of our twitter account,” he said.
On Wednesday the Shabab used the account to release a link to a video of several Kenyan hostages they said they will execute within three weeks if the Kenyan government does not release prisoners held on terrorism charges.
Earlier this month they posted graphic photographs of a French soldier killed during a failed bid to release a French agent whom the Shabab had held for more than three years. They later used Twitter to announce the hostage’s execution.
French Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault denounced the publication of the photographs as a “particularly odious display.”
Twitter warns that accounts can be suspended if they violate its rules, which include the publishing of “direct, specific threats of violence against others,” according to regulations posted on its website.
Users are also blocked if they use Twitter “for any unlawful purposes or in furtherance of illegal activities.”
Last year the Shabab used the account — which was opened in December 2011, and most recently had more than 20,000 followers — for a series of exchanges with Kenya’s army spokesman, taunting the Kenyans after they invaded southern Somalia to attack the Islamists.
Shabab fighters are on the back foot in Somalia, reeling from a string of losses as they battle a 17,000-strong African Union force as well as Ethiopian troops and Somali forces.
The Shabab would use their account to goad Kenya’s army spokesman Emmanuel Chirchir, calling the Kenyan military “inexperienced boys.”
And, after Chirchir warned that herds of donkeys were a potential target — since they were viewed as Shabab convoys — the Islamists retorted that Kenya’s “eccentric battle strategy has got animal rights groups quite concerned.”
In January 2012, during a live web chat platform that the US State Department used to engage with international media, Washington’s senior adviser for innovation Alec Ross said terrorist organizations should be “dismantled and destroyed.”
“And so for me to think about whether they should have the right to use Twitter or not, I go to a more fundamental question, which is: Do they have the right to exist or not? And my answer to that is no. ... Shabab and other institutions that are purveyors of terror are going to get absolutely no sympathy from me, and they certainly aren’t going to see me advocate for their rights,” Ross said.
Twitter suspends account of Somali Islamist insurgents
Twitter suspends account of Somali Islamist insurgents
Saja Kilani shines at BAFTAs 2026
DUBAI: Palestinian-Jordanian-Canadian actress Saja Kilani, one of the stars of “The Voice of Hind Rajab,” stepped onto the BAFTA Film Awards 2026 red carpet in a sculptural look from Bottega Veneta’s Spring 2026 collection.
Nominated for Best Film Not in the English Language, Kaouther Ben Hania’s “Voice of Hind Rajab” tells the story of Hind Rajab Hamada, who was fleeing the Israeli military in Gaza City with six relatives last year when their car came under fire.
The sole survivor of the Israeli attack, who was then shot and killed, her desperate calls recorded with the Red Crescent rescue service caused international outrage.
Kilani plays Rana Faqih, the real-life Palestine Red Crescent Society volunteer who spoke to Hamada in the final hours of her life as she waited, surrounded by the bodies of her family, for help to come.
Meanwhile, politically charged thriller “One Battle After Another” won six prizes, including Best Picture, at the British Academy Film Awards on Sunday, building momentum ahead of Hollywood’s Academy Awards next month.
Blues-steeped vampire epic “Sinners” and gothic horror story “Frankenstein” won three awards each, while Shakespearean family tragedy “Hamnet” won two, including Best British Film.
“One Battle After Another,” Paul Thomas Anderson’s explosive film about a group of revolutionaries in chaotic conflict with the state, won awards for directing, adapted screenplay, cinematography and editing, as well as for Sean Penn’s supporting performance as an obsessed military officer.
“This is very overwhelming and wonderful,” Anderson said as he accepted the directing prize. He paid tribute to his longstanding assistant director, Adam Somner, who died of cancer in November 2024, a few weeks into production.
“We have a line from Nina Simone that we used in our film, ‘I know what freedom is: It’s no fear,’” the director said. “Let’s keep making things without fear. It’s a good idea.”
Bookies’ favorite Jessie Buckley won the Best Actress prize for her portrayal of grieving mother Agnes Hathaway, wife of William Shakespeare, in “Hamnet.” Buckley, 36, is the first Irish performer to win the Best Actress prize at the awards.
She dedicated her award “to the women past, present and future who taught me and continue to teach me how to do it differently.”
Horror film “Sinners” took home trophies for director Ryan Coogler’s original screenplay, the film’s musical score and for Wunmi Mosaku’s supporting actress performance as herbalist and healer Annie.
The British-Nigerian actor said that in the role she found “a part of my hopes, my ancestral power and my connection, parts I thought I had lost or tried to dim as an immigrant trying to fit in.”
