by Bilva Chandra
Since 2017, the United States has ramped up its airstrike operations in order to fight the prevalence and influence of Al-Shabaab, an Al-Qaeda affiliate terrorist organization operating in Somalia. In 2019 alone, it conducted 63 airstrikes in Somalia, which have resulted in several reports and allegations of civilian casualties. [1]
The March 10, 2020 airstrike in Somalia was reprisal for Al-Shabaab’s Manda Bay attack, which resulted in the deaths of one servicemember and two US contractors. [2] AFRICOM (United States Africa Command) received several allegations of unreported civilian casualties from online media sources as a direct result of the airstrike. [3] Despite these claims, AFRICOM did not report any civilian casualties, though it was aware of the allegations. [4]
Using Zignal’s Media Intelligence Cloud, we illuminated the information operations and narrative amplification stemming from the US military’s airstrike in Somalia on March 10, 2020.
Key Takeaways
Automated media dynamics disproportionately amplified civilian casualties from the strike.
The most artificial distortion occurred immediately after the incident.
Russian and Turkish state news conglomerates (Sputnik and Anadolu Agency, respectively) released articles amplifying civilian casualty allegations.
This Intelligence Brief captures high-volume conversations about the United States’ airstrike targeting Al-Shabaab in Somalia on March 10, 2020, and the themes that were amplified to undermine US strategic interests in the region.
Sentiment Segmentation
The sentiment segmentation [5] grid above illustrates how accounts with high automation scores [6] pervasively manipulated narratives around the March 10th airstrike. The implications of this grid are considerable, as it portrays that artificial negative distortion is the most apparent in the immediate aftermath of this event, and diminishes over time. Automation appears responsible for the negative sentiments focusing on unverified claims of civilian casualties. [7]
Influence Intelligence
Top Media Influencers: Within 10 days of the strike
In the above figure, Zignal’s Influence Intelligence module visualizes the most influential media hubs discussing the airstrike. Between March 10 and March 20, 2020, the most popular news story titles were:
“US Airstrike in Somalia Killed Two Civilians” from The Intercept
“US Airstrike said to have killed 6 civilians” by the Anadolu Agency
“US airstrike killed civilians: MP” from Al-Jazeera
The Anadolu Agency is a state-run Turkish media agency, known for publishing misleading reports, Al- Jazeera is based in Doha, Qatar, and The Intercept is based in the US. Negative automated elements primarily shared these three stories, emphasizing civilian casualties, over other news about the airstrike.
Top Media Influencers: One month later
A month after the attack, The Intercept remained the most influential, as it was the top outlet shared by volume — however, Sputnik, a Kremlin-based media conglomerate, was in the top 10 media outlets shared by volume, and actively amplified unverified allegations about civilian casualties as well. [8]
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