Technology growth complicates global fight against terrorism

Social media site Facebook. It is one of the sites used by terrorists to recruit people. FILE PHOTO 

In Summary

• Experts believe that the contribution of technology to violent extremism keeps growing by the years.
• Terrorists organisations use the internet for activities such as financial mobilisation, training in bomb-making and networking.

By STELLA CHERONO
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Three days shy of his 24th birthday, Hassan Maluoda received a message from a friend on Facebook.

He was offering to help him find ‘peace and assistance’ because his social media updates pointed at depression.

It was almost two weeks after his brother Abdikadir had disappeared from South B while returning to their home at Five Star Estate.

Neighbours and grocers said they had seen him being arrested by four people who shoved him into a white car with some eggs and milk in his hands.

SEARCH
Mr Abdikadir went missing on Sunday, September 18, 2016.

He had purportedly left his phone at home, since he was just going to the shop to get something to eat.

After futile searches for his brother in all possible places, Mr Maluoda took to Facebook to request the public to help him trace him.

“Days after posting continuously about my brother, I received a message from someone calling himself Capt Abdi Barole.

"He sounded concerned. He said he was not Kenyan, but had lived in this country for more than eight years,” Mr Maluoda said.

ASSISTANCE
In their conversation, Mr Maluoda says, Mr Barole sounded like a bitter man, but who had the capability to influence the security forces to release his brother.

“He asked me whether I could be his close friend and kept asking if I could be trusted.

"He also said he knows my suffering and pain and promised to introduce me to someone who would help me get a better life, one free from suppression,” Mr Maluoda said.

He says Mr Barole introduced him to several people and added him to social media groups with people whom he purported had lost their kin to extrajudicial executions, forced disappearances and unlawful detention.

“The groups were full of discussions on how the governments were oppressive and discriminative.

"What shocked me most was the fact that some people shared gruesome pictures of people killed by terrorists, the rest applauded and celebrated them,” Mr Maluoda said, adding this an indication that the group was up to no good.

HANDLER
He said he chose to silently follow the conversations in the groups though he did not see how the groups could help him locate his brother.

Meanwhile, he says, Mr Barole kept telling him that he needed his details so that he could connect him with a mentor who would help him.

“At some point, he even told me I would receive some money from a sponsor in the Middle East, so that he can facilitate my escape away from this ‘filthy and corrupt country’ to a paradise where people love one another and brotherhood exists,” Mr Maluoda said.

The rule in the groups, he said, was to always use Whatsapp and Facebook to make voice calls to one another, since the ‘oppressive state’ always has a way of tracking their targets through direct calls.

“Generally, the group instilled a sense of being insecure in their statuses, bitterness and hatred towards Kenyans and the government.

|I felt desperate in the search for my brother and I had no solution coming from the groups.

"Then one day, I decided to search online to find details about some of the websites and ‘donors’ always mentioned by members of those groups,” Hassan said.

EXTREMISTS
He says he realised that they were all online recruitment sites, wooing youth to join extremist groups both locally and internationally.

“On realising this, I left the four groups but I immediately started receiving messages with threats to my life.

"Mr Barole even told me he had all details about me and my family. He told me, I had to be careful and ‘never underestimate the power of numbers."'

Mr Maluoda reported the threats to Lang'ata Police Station and deactivated all his social media accounts and got a new phone number.

The case is being investigated by the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI).

ABDUCTED
His brother was later in October the same year, released by his abductors whom he said took him because of a family land tussle.

The abductors were arrested and charged at the Mombasa Law Courts. The case is pending.

Security forces have recently admitted that the advancement of technology, through the emergence of social media platforms, is complicating the fight against radicalisation and terrorism globally, as it makes it easy to interact with sympathisers, recruit youth and fundraise for their activities.

Experts believe that the contribution of technology to violent extremism keeps growing by the years, as terrorists are capable of using pseudo-accounts and incognito accounts to spot and recruit vulnerable youth, reach their sympathisers and create panic through propaganda.

READ: ISIS-linked suspects were 'planning cyberterrorism'

READ: 58 campus students join terrorist groups

INTERNET
The 2017 Global Terrorism Index (GTI) published by the Institute for Economics and Peace states that the internet will remain a lifeline for terrorists' propaganda while it is being decimated on the battlefield.

The index cited Kenya as one of the countries where social media has accelerated the spread of jihadist propaganda and has a high number of extremists who were radicalised online.

“Modern technology prevents governments from controlling the spread of extremist ideas.

"Terrorists now act simultaneously as the actors, producers and newscasters of their acts of violence.

"We can no longer ‘find ways to starve the terrorist of the oxygen of publicity on which they depend,”' the report says.

FUNDING
The index, which compiles all the terrorism-related statistics in the world, indicates that the network of donations from charities, banks and various online forums made up the majority of Al-Qaeda and Islamic State funding.

“The ease of transferring money to and within terrorist groups has increased with increased access to the internet, online banking and phone money transfers,” GTI report note, adding that the internet and smart phones have also become the preferred mode of operation to coordinate attacks.

Apart from that, the GTI states that the internet is a new tool for broadcasting terror in real time with live video streaming from Bangladesh, Kenya and France.

Head of Kenya’s Anti-Terrorism Police Unit Munga Nyale says terrorists organisations use the internet for financial mobilisation, to acquire training in bomb-making, sharing information on terrorism around the world, planning the attacks and networking with its members.

“Social media is widely used in the Kenyan context to spread hate speech and release the terror audio and video recordings that advance their propaganda,” Mr Nyale says.

DEPRESSION
Part of what complicates the situation is the fact that some social media platforms like Facebook have introduced a machine-learning algorithm that identifies depressed users based on the data generated from their online searches.

This makes it easy for some terror organisations to pick depressed and vulnerable individuals.

Experts say some techniques like those used by companies to sell products on social media are used by extremists to locate potential recruits anonymously through the internet.

“Online intelligence-gathering restricting spreading of terrorism contents from the internet has helped in ensuring that online recruitment is stopped,” Mr Nyale says.

The counter-terrorism units, he says, have partnered with Google, Facebook and Twitter to monitor and provide data related to terrorism.

Although there is no apparent terrorism-linked website in Kenya, security forces believe there are many social media platforms run by sympathisers and financiers of terror groups.

In the past the country’s Interior Ministry has deleted information that propagate radicalisation and spread terrorism propaganda.