News / Africa

Al Shabab Opens New Twitter Account

An illustration picture shows the logo of the Website Twitter, January 30, 2013.  An illustration picture shows the logo of the Website Twitter, January 30, 2013.
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An illustration picture shows the logo of the Website Twitter, January 30, 2013.
An illustration picture shows the logo of the Website Twitter, January 30, 2013.
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VOA News
Somali insurgent group al-Shabab has opened a new Twitter account in English, 10 days after its previous account on the social media site was suspended.

The group opened the new account Sunday with a series of messages, including one that said silencing al-Shabab on Twitter only highlights the group's cause and justifies the actions of mujahideen.

The al-Shabab English account was shut down late last month, after the group used the service to announce it had killed a French hostage and showed graphic photos of a French soldier killed during a rescue attempt.

The insurgents also used Twitter to release a video in which they threatened to kill a group of Kenyan hostages.

Al-Shabab's Arabic and Somali-language accounts were not suspended.

As of Monday, the group's new English-language account still had fewer than 1,000 followers.

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