WATCH: ISIS Somalia Ambush Peacekeepers in Africa
A new video purportedly released by the Islamic State shows ISIS affiliates in Somalia attacking and massacring ANISOM peacekeepers in the African savanna. ANISOM, which stands for the”African Union Mission in Somalia”, is a United Nations-sanctioned peacekeeping force deployed in Somalia to help establish peace. Somalia has been a powder keg of political, ethnic, and religious turmoil ever since becoming free from its colonial oppressors, Great Britain and Italy, in the 1960s.
Al-Shabaab, the main terrorist power in the region, has recently been courted by ISIS to pledge fealty to the larger terrorist franchise. A May 2015 article by CNN about an ISIS propaganda video directed at Somalians writes:
In the roughly six-minute video, five unmasked men of Somali ethnicity arrive in large, new-looking SUVs. They are carrying weapons and surrounded by heavily armed bodyguards.Speaking in Arabic under palm trees, the men take turns imploring Somalis and members of the insurgent group Al-Shabaab, whom they refer to as ”truthful mujahedeen” to join their movement to fight the West, and to pledge allegiance to ISIS.This is the first time ISIS has appealed directly through video to Al-Shabaab to merge with them.
Al-Shabaab had previously pledged allegiance to Al Qaeda.
This is the first known ISIS video out of Somalia.
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