FALSE: This image isn’t of Egypt’s special forces and general intelligence service officers in Mogadishu’
The image was taken during the handing over of Hisham Ashmawy by Libya to Egypt in 2019.
This X (formerly Twitter) post with an image claiming to show Egypt’s special forces and general intelligence service officers in Mogadishu, Somalia, in September 2024 is FALSE.
The post reads, “Egypt Special Forces and General Intelligence Service (G.I.S) in Mogadishu.”
On 14 August 2024, Egypt and Somalia inked a defence agreement to strengthen their security cooperation. The deal was struck during bilateral negotiations between Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi and his Somalia counterpart Hassan Sheikh Mohamud in Cairo.
After that, on 28 August 2024, Reuters reported that according to three diplomatic and Somalia official sources, Egypt provided Somalia with its first military help in more than four decades, potentially exacerbating tensions between the two countries and Ethiopia.
However, Google reverse image search results reveal that the photo was taken during the handing over of terrorist Hisham Ashmawy by Libya to Egypt in 2019.
The image was published by Egypt Forward on 29 May 2019 in an article titled, “Egypt Receives Terrorists Hisham al-Ashmawi & Bahaa Abd El Mo’aty After The Visit of Egypt’s Intelligence Chief to Libya.”
The image was also published here and here alongside an article about the Libyan National Army handing over Ashmawy, who was wanted in terrorism cases.
PesaCheck has examined an X post with an image purportedly of Egypt’s special forces and general intelligence service in Mogadishu, Somalia, in September 2024 and finds it to be FALSE.
This post is part of an ongoing series of PesaCheck fact-checks examining content marked as potential misinformation on Facebook and other social media platforms.
By partnering with Facebook and similar social media platforms, third-party fact-checking organisations like PesaCheck are helping to sort fact from fiction. We do this by giving the public deeper insight and context to posts they see in their social media feeds.
Have you spotted what you think is fake news or false information on Facebook?Here’s how you can report. And, here’s more information on PesaCheck’s methodology for fact-checking questionable content.
This fact-check was written by a PesaCheck fact-checker based in Ethiopia (name withheld for security reasons) and edited by PesaCheck senior copy editor Mary Mutisya and chief copy editor Stephen Ndegwa.
The article was approved for publication by PesaCheck’s managing editor Doreen Wainainah.
