Somalia: Profile of UK-based pro-Islamic web site
February 02, 2007
Somalia's Islamists, who recently lost power in the country, seem to be quickly resorting to the internet as their main media outlet.
Analysis of the Islamists' media trends indicates that they are using the net to conduct propaganda and also publish news as seen from their perspective.
Their latest web site is the www.soomaalinews.com
Although the site does not explicitly say it is allied to the defeated Union of Islamic Courts, its reporting tone depicts so. BBC Monitoring notes that most of the reports carried on the site between 31 January and 2 February 2007 either support the Islamists or are critical of the Somali interim government and its Ethiopian and Western allies.
A 1 February report had the Islamists "setting" conditions for the release of US soldiers "kidnapped" by the Somali Islamists. The site carried another report alleging that some 5,000 Ethiopian and Puntland troops operating in Somalia were HIV positive. According to the report, these "sick" soldiers were being deployed "to spread" AIDS in Somalia.
The AIDS allegation is similar to a 27 January 2007 report by the Eritrean state radio, which claimed that Ethiopia had "sent over 130 HIV-positive prostitutes" to Somalia as part of a "ill-advised plan, which is aimed at annihilating the Somali people by infecting them with HIV".
Address
An analysis of the web site using whois.net indicates that it was created on 4 January 2006. Its owner is listed as Mohamed Hersi and email contact as somalimarket@hotmail.com. The postal address is given as 50 Tangmere Willan Road, Tottenham, 6NB N17, Great Britain. The telephone contact is +44.2088018597.
The contact person's address is given as: Hostmaster Funktionen with the email address being hostmaster@b-one.nu
The postal address is given as: Kalvebod Brygge 45, Copenhagen V, and telephone address as +45.46907100.
Source: BBC Monitoring research in English 2 Feb 07
© 2007 The British Broadcasting Corporation. All Rights Reserved
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment