State Department...Still 'Hacking' ?

As we noted previously, the US State Department has been taking part in some interesting activities on Yemeni websites. Originally described as “hacking Al-Qaeda websites,” their activities were actually much less mysterious than originally thought.  We (and others) later determined that the State Dept. operatives simply posted doctored banners and images on Yemeni forums, specifically المجلس اليمني Al-Majles Al-Yemeni or Ye1.org.

Anyway, they’re not finished, and we are following what they’re doing. They’re making some cool graphics, but overall their work remains pretty ineffective at persuading people to dislike Al-Qaeda. When these guys come onto threads with their State Dept logo and signature, the conversation almost always turns from Al-Qaeda to the ills and dark sides of American foreign policy (which here inevitably includes drone strikes that kill civilians).

Here’s the latest example of their work, found Sunday on ye1.org:

The text reads "Ansar Al-Sharia is thirsty for the blood of Yemenis, and relishes in shedding their blood. To Al-Qaeda- the proud tribes of Yemen are on the lookout for you." [In Arabic, Ansar Al-Shar means 'Followers of Evil']

We believe that this parody image is supposed to be a play on an original Ansar Al-Sharia (AAS) propaganda image that was published as part of an AAS public relations campaign last winter:

The text reads "Ansar Al-Sharia: Relief for Yemen after its thirst, Hope for Yemen after its desperation. Proud tribes of Yemen, how then are you sacrificing yourselves for them?" [the Americans, presumably]

 In the original AAS banner above, the group refers to Yemeni tribal elements who oppose them as "Sahwat" صحوات or "Awakenings," harking back to the Awakening Councils of Anbar, Iraq. The groups consisted of tribes opposed to Al-Qaeda and who fought to end Al-Qaeda's influence in their territories. Just as they did in Iraq, Al-Qaeda/AAS tries to label the tribal Yemenis who fight against them as traitors or apostates in order to de-legitimize them and Islamically permit their killing.

So far, reverse image searching shows that the AAS image shows up over 2,000 times on the internet. The State Dept.'s image shows up only once. We'll be keeping our eyes open for more.

State Dept Hacking Yemeni Sites?

The blogosphere was beset with stories last week of a speech by American Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who claimed that the State Department hacked Yemeni tribal websites, replacing Al-Qaeda propaganda that bragged about killing Americans.

Clinton's words:

"Within 48 hours, our team plastered the same sites with altered versions of the ads that showed the toll al-Qaida attacks have taken on the Yemeni people...Within 48 hours, our team plastered the same sites with altered versions of the ads that showed the toll al-Qaida attacks have taken on the Yemeni people," "Extremists are publicly venting their frustration and asking supporters not to believe everything they read on the Internet."

The story was everywhere: Huffington Post, Slate, Washington Post,  Politico, Times of India,  New York Magazine, etc. It was picked up by the AP - everyone carried it. 

We were pretty surprised to hear such news, considering our previous experience with فريق التواصل الالكتروني , the State Dept's Digital Outreach Team. They're the folks who go onto Arabic (and presumably other language) forums to comment officially in the name of the USA. They may not have a lot of resources behind them, which would explain why they have sometimes been rather inept. A great example of that can be found here on Abu Mahjoob forums, where several users demonstrate their frustrations with the team's lack of dialogue and with the fact that they constantly bring up terrorism and Al-Qaeda in any given subject. This team really deserves their own post....maybe later. Anyway, we've never seen the team do anything near actually HACKING into websites. The only offensive action noticed by us here at the blog was a video they made at the beginning of the Arab Spring, comparing Al-Qaeda ideology to the peaceful action of the Arab revolutions by splicing an Ayman Al-Zawahiri video with scenes from Tunis and Cairo. That video was actually pretty awesome. 

It was hard to believe that they had moved on to hacking websites. And we were right - they didn't. Wired got the story right - their piece on the story gives a great summary of what went wrong: either Clinton misspoke or the story was misreported, but either way, State did not "hack" websites, it simply posted their ads on forums. Now that sounds more like the tactics of the good old فريق التواصل الالكتروني. However, making parodies of AQ banners/ads was new....we decided to check it out. 

We looked at المجلس اليمني Ye1.org/vb , the largest Yemeni focused forum, and we would argue, the largest and most active Arabic forum in the game right now. It didn't take too long to find the State Department's handywork. Enjoy:

Image reads: "Ansar Al-Sharia  Al-Qaeda: This is our gift to the Yemeni people, if you are part of the popular committees*, we are Al-Qaeda, we bring mercenaries to steal your sons and destroy your homes."

We're not sure, but we think the above State Dept ad was designed to counter this ad made by Ansar Al-Sharia (Al-Qaeda in Yemen):

Image reads: "Popular Committees: We made your masters cry. How can you be such mercenaries to America? For God we've moved and for his religion we fight. But you, what are you fighting for, you committees of shame?" As you can see, the soldier on the left is clearly meant to be an American soldier. Jihadi authors on Ye1 claim that the popular committees are slaves of the Americans. 

There's more State Dept. images online. We'll bring them to you...more on that in a later post. 

*Note: "Popular Committees" refers to groups of local, tribal forces who are currently fighting AQ in Yemen. They're civilians who are against AQ's rule of territory there...reminiscent of the Anbar Awakening Sunnis in Iraq. 

UPDATE:
More accurately, the State Dept.'s image may have been in response to this particular image from Ansar Al-Sharia: