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Somali militia group hacked on Twitter


Thursday, February 09, 2012

In the volatile country of Somalia, the fight between militant groups has spilled over onto Twitter.

The main opposition group al-Shabab, an al-Qaeda-linked Somali militia, often uses the social media site to pick fights and proselytize to would-be recruits. One of the groups that opposes al-Shabab, the Sufi Islamist group Ahlu Sunna Waljamea, also uses Twitter, but to a far less successful degree.

Compared to al-Shabab’s nearly 11,000 followers, Ahlu Sunna has only 74. And, while al-Shabab’s continuing to tweet about the latest disruptive violence it’s inflicting on Somalia, Ahlu Sunna’s last tweet offered an easy way to lose weight.

It’s not a new propaganda tactic. The Twitter stream appears to have been hacked.It seems a harmless hack, though whoever did break into the account took it on themselves to privately message (a DM in Twitter talk) a journalist. Jeremy Scahill, the national security correspondent for the Nation, wrote, “Hilarious. Someone hacked Somali militia Ahlu Sunna's Twitter. Just got DM: ‘You seen what this person is saying about you? Terrible things.’ ”

On the scale of groups hacked just this week, Ahlu Sunna is a pretty low-profile group. Other victims: the FBI, Symantec, a huge anti-virus company, and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

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