Kenya’s military spokesman is using Twitter to warn people not to help al-Qaeda-linked militants by selling them an old-world transportation tool: donkeys.
Spokesman Major Emmanuel Chirchir is tweeting updates on Kenya’s military push into Somalia to fight the al-Shabaab militants.
On Thursday, he warned unidentified planes to stay out of the region for fear they were transporting weapons to al-Shabaab. Chirchir said in an interview that Kenya would shoot down any planes that officials suspect are full of weapons.
His commentary also carries the kind of military warnings not usually issued by the Pentagon or NATO: Southern Somalia is getting heavy rains that vehicles can’t move through. Accordingly, the price of animal transport has shot up.
“Kenyans dealing in donkey trade along the Kenya-Somali border are advised not to sell their animals to al-Shabaab,” Chirchir tweeted, adding: “Selling Donkeys to ae l-Shabaab will undermine our efforts in Somalia.”
“In addition we are also reliably informed that the cost of donkeys has risen from [US]$150 to [US]$200 for a donkey. Thus, any large concentration and movement of loaded donkeys will be considered as Al Shabaab activity,” Chirchir said.
Chirchir said that Twitter is an easy way to quickly and easily communicate the military’s message and that many Somalians are online. Earlier this week, Chirchir tweeted a list of 10 Somalian towns it warned would soon be attacked, prompting residents to flee after Somali media picked up the story.
“When you do something on Twitter it goes onto the Internet and people who see it can even call those who can’t see it,” he said. “We’re getting good feedback that Somalis are moving away from al-Shabaab camps. It is heard in Mogadishu, Kismayo and Baidoa.”
Chirchir said the Kenyan military has informants who have said that three flights carrying weapons for al-Shabaab have landed in Baidoa, Somalia in the past week. Residents and a Somalian legislator say that al-Shabaab fighters had blocked off the access to the airport in the central Somalian town of Baidoa.
“All aircrafts are hereby warned not to land in BAIDOA. Anyone violating this will be doing so at their peril,” Chirchir tweeted.
Far from the violence ravaging Haiti, a market on the border with the Dominican Republic has maintained a welcome degree of normal everyday life. At the Dajabon border gate, a wave of Haitians press forward, eager to shop at the twice-weekly market about 200km from Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince. They are drawn by the market’s offerings — food, clothing, toys and even used appliances — items not always readily available in Haiti. However, with gang violence bad and growing ever worse in Haiti, the Dominican government has reinforced the usual military presence at the border and placed soldiers on alert. While the market continues to
An image of a dancer balancing on the words “China Before Communism” looms over Parisian commuters catching the morning metro, signaling the annual return of Shen Yun, a controversial spectacle of traditional Chinese dance mixed with vehement criticism of Beijing and conservative rhetoric. The Shen Yun Performing Arts company has slipped the beliefs of a spiritual movement called Falun Gong in between its technicolored visuals and leaping dancers since 2006, with advertising for the show so ubiquitous that it has become an Internet meme. Founded in 1992, Falun Gong claims nearly 100 million followers and has been subject to “persistent persecution” in
ONLINE VITRIOL: While Mo Yan faces a lawsuit, bottled water company Nongfu Spring and Tsinghua University are being attacked amid a rise in nationalist fervor At first glance, a Nobel prize winning author, a bottle of green tea and Beijing’s Tsinghua University have little in common, but in recent weeks they have been dubbed by China’s nationalist netizens as the “three new evils” in the fight to defend the country’s valor in cyberspace. Last month, a patriotic blogger called Wu Wanzheng filed a lawsuit against China’s only Nobel prize-winning author, Mo Yan (莫言), accusing him of discrediting the Communist army and glorifying Japanese soldiers in his fictional works set during the Japanese invasion of China. Wu, who posts online under the pseudonym “Truth-Telling Mao Xinghuo,” is seeking
‘SURPRISES’: The militants claim to have successfully tested a missile capable of reaching Mach 8 and vowed to strike ships heading toward the Cape of Good Hope Yemen’s Houthi rebels claim to have a new, hypersonic missile in their arsenal, Russia’s state media reported on Thursday, potentially raising the stakes in their attacks on shipping in the Red Sea and surrounding waterways against the backdrop of Israel’s war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip. The report by the state-run RIA Novosti news agency cited an unidentified official, but provided no evidence for the claim. It comes as Moscow maintains an aggressively counter-Western foreign policy amid its grinding war on Ukraine. However, the Houthis have for weeks hinted about “surprises” they plan for the battles at sea to counter the