Al-Shabab dodges Twitter's efforts to shut down access

NAIROBI, Kenya - Soon after gunmen stormed a Kenyan shopping mall on Saturday, killing dozens in a spray of bullets and grenades, triumphant tweets swept the Internet.

"The Mujahedeen entered Westgate Mall today at around noon and are still inside the mall, fighting the Kenyan Kuffar inside their own turf," cheered the Twitter account of Al-Shabab, Al-Qaida's affiliate in Somalia. "The Mujahedeen inside the mall confirmed to @HSM - Press that they killed over 100 Kenyan kuffar & battle is ongoing."

Hours later, the account disappeared. For the third time this year, Twitter tried to kick Al-Shabab off its social media platform.

Within hours, a new account popped up once again, tweeting mocking jibes at Kenyans as if it had never stopped. Then it too went silent.

As the horror of the assault on Nairobi's Westgate mall continued a second day Sunday, with uncertainty surrounding what was taking place at the multistory complex, the Internet became the only way to learn the motivations of the attackers — amid fierce debate over whether terrorists should have their own platform.

Kenyan officials on Sunday issued revised accounts of the mayhem, but there was little said publicly about the perpetrators of the attack, except for what emerged on Twitter.

In Afghanistan and Pakistan, Al-Qaida spokesmen regularly communicate directly with journalists, often by phone. Al-Shabab, too, has an official spokesman — but he is in Somalia, is rarely reachable, and communicates mostly to only a trusted ring of media contacts.

"The Al-Shabab terror group has claimed responsibility for this cowardly act of terror on social media. However, investigations are underway to conclusively establish those responsible for this mayhem," President Uhuru Kenyatta of Kenya said in a televised statement Sunday evening.

Al-Shabab, through its Twitter account, said the attack was retribution for the Kenyan military's offensive into Shabab strongholds in southern Somalia that began in 2011 after a string of cross-border kidnappings. As anger swept through Kenya at the scale of the attack, Kenyan Twitter users began demanding that Al-Shabab again have its account canceled.

"The danger of course is that they get a following among young gullible people," said Rashid Abdi, an independent Somali analyst. But from an intelligence perspective, said Abdi, "allowing these people some kind of forum where they can make claims is important."

Intelligence services closely monitor flagged terror accounts to help map out other networks of online supporters.

In the end, the organization's clear delight in brashly boasting of past and future violence appears to force Twitter's hand toward the delete button.

The group clearly has no plans to give up its tweeting habit anytime soon.

"Kenyans will not appreciate the gravity of the situation without seeing, feeling and experiencing death in all its ghoulish detail," tweeted a new account, @HSM - PressOffice, claiming to be Al-Shabab.