Mogadishu’s Media War

When Mogadishu is often described as one of the world’s most dangerous places, it is not merely an understatement. No amount of coverage or depiction would do justice to the horrors that persistently lay siege to this city’s wear population. And the assault, this time, is not only on the ground.

More than one week into the intense battles that had crippled Mogadishu’s residents and the rivals’ radio stations could no longer contain their fury. Mogadishu’s battle is being fought on the airwaves. The target: The Minds of Mogadishans. With information and misinformation, scathing remarks, alarming threats and the rapid rattle of a machine-gun fire for jingles, the airwaves are waging a deadly psychological warfare in order to sculpt the minds of the residents, thereby transforming the battle’s prospects.

What I find rather staggering, however, is the how far each party is willing to go to in order update the local population about the Mogadishu battles according to their version of events. The government’s vociferous Radio Muqdisho (90 MHz) had dispatched some of its reporters to the front lines. Embedded with the AMISOM troops, the Radio Muqdisho reporters transmit their reports via a telephone. A few days into the battle and the station claimed to have built a new make-shift station ‘inside’ the Ministry of Defense compound where some AMISOM soldiers from the Burundian contingent were said to have been besieged by the Islamists.