Today I want to focus on a rarely analysed aspect of the conflict., which is the hybrid war.
Just as important as bombs and bullets, the hybrid war deploys information and perception management strategies.
Before the first shot was fired SSC information officers were already disseminating a carefully crafted narrative to all interested parties. News media, western politicians, NGOs, Human rights groups were notified of an impending " genocide" in Lascaanood. Press releases, social media, petitions, direct lobbying, advertising/marketing and Hashtags# were all employed to saturate the media space.
Information warfare is not new, it's been around since WWI. However, this is the first time it has been used in real time within the Somali context.
If folk remember, during the conflict my primary focus was getting the SSC narrative into the mainstream. I can't tell you how rewarding it was to see SSC talking points all over the international media. SSC was on everybody's lips around the world while SL had yet to put its shoes on.
When SL did eventually try to limit the political fallout and damage to its reputation around the world, it was amateurish and ineffective. A caseinpoint is the absurd accusation that Al Shabaab had taken over Lascaanood.
This had the affect of making SL seem ridiculous and guilty simultaneously..
I distinctly remember iidoors claiming that information and disinformation would not win this war......and only military hardware could deliver victory. They couldn't be more wrong, as has been proved by later events.
The information war hit at the heart of SL claims to be a peaceful democracy and contiguous land/ people.
We were not just fighting against a genocidal force led by a tyrannical dictator......we were waging war on the very notion of a "Somaliland", itself.
As the war progressed SSC information office, which was connected to various important locations around the world via Lascaanood in real time, would provide half hourly updates of all the atrocities being committed against the civilian population. Hospitals, schools, mosques and residential areas were all shown to be under constant bombardment.
The humanitarian crisis of hundreds of thousands of men , women and children without food and water, sleeping out in the open was beamed into the political offices of the UN, EU, UK etc to devasting affect.
Within days an international humanitarian response was on the ground in SSC and surrounding regions. The UN security Council even convened a meeting to discuss the SSC crisis.
Another SSC strategy was to not only delegitimise SL, but to go after their bag. This proved devastatingly effective, as one by one aid was either cut altogether or suspended.
By the cessation of hostilities SL regime was completely destabilised, unable to respond to the tremendous pressure bring exerted by SSC cadres around the world.
I'm immensely proud of what our young people in the diaspora were able to achieve. They will go down in the Pantheon of SSC heroes.....every much as heroic as the twenty Dhulbahante youths whom were gunned down in cold blood for daring to declare their country.....sparking a revival of long dormant Somali nationalism and the Glorious Blue Revolution, which has resulted in the liberation of SSC .
