On Kenya’s Independence Day, the Al-Qaeda branch in Somalia, Harakat Shabaab al-Mujahideen (HSM) published and distributed a gimcrack agitprop video about the Dusit D2 Hotel and 14TH Riverside Drive Office Complex terrorist attack on January 15th 2019 in the Capital Nairobi. The video is a reminder to CT Operators on the threat Grassroots jihadists who have direct contact and training with professional terrorists pose.
The video featured a grassroots jihadist cell that was supported by 2 fighters from Somalia. The video also provides their names, ethnicity and nationality, a tactic often exploited in terrorists psychological operations to amplify the Hijra ideology. This particular terror cell was drawn from the Saleh an-Nabhan Brigade, an Al-Shabaab Mujahideen militia wing established in honor of Saleh Nabhan – an al-Shabaab leader of Kenyan origin who was killed in US Army Forces ‘Operation Celestial Balance’ on Monday 14 September 2009 outside Baarawe, Southern Somalia.
The video features the terror cells during the eve of the attack and briefly, “the cells moments in the traffic” on the day of the terror event. Apart from the attribution, ‘that the attack was factored by American President Donald Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as the Israeli Capital, and an answer to Al-Qaeda Central’s Ayman al-Zawahiri’s stricture about Judaizing of Jerusalem” the video has less flair and substance, a leave from previous publications that were gross and explicate.
Perhaps the agitprop publication was part of the terrorist organizations psychological operation targeting the local audience of terrorism. However gimcrack, the video is a form of exchanging guidance, inspiration, and instructions between cells without necessarily concealing and encoding specific messages. The decline of explicative media productions by al-Khattaib is notable. It is an indicator of a steady decline in capacity. Intelligence shows most of the media units embedded in the militia wing get killed while filming.
Another notable is the weeping Jihadist Osman Ahmad Hassan. In our study of Pre- incident indicators of Shabaab al-Mujahideen terrorist, S.I researchers found out that most pre-recorded audio-visuals were messages meant for the terrorist group and its brigades. The weeping jihadists is overwhelmed by the near death (cowardice), a typical behavior due to anxiety and fear of physical pain during the impeding death (regret). The commemoration of killed terrorists via these audio-visual information operations is also used to motivate and condition conscripts of such missions.
Zero sophistication is largely notable. Typically, a terrorist incident is scheduled to occur between three and six weeks following the final preparation though this average time is much shorter if the outliers aren’t challenged (Mahir Khalid Riziki had to covertly travel to the safehouse. He was wanted by State Security Agencies in Kenya). The particular cell followed the typical script of a preparatory act the day prior to the incident (the last supper meeting) and on the day of the incident (the sunnah in the vehicle enroute the target).
