UAE propaganda agents are stealing photos of Somali women and exploiting them to promote political propaganda

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Stealing photos of Somali women and exploiting them to promote political propaganda​

political messages.Article Information

• • Author,Mungani Ngege
  • Role,BBC Worldwide Disinformation Unit
  • Author,Lamis Al-Talbi and Ahmed Nour
  • Role,BBC Fact Check
  • Author,Paradise Hanshi
  • Role,BBC African Service
• October 21, 2025

A BBC investigation has found dozens of social media accounts impersonating Muslim and Somali influencers and models.
The smiling woman in the photo, wearing a blue abaya, is on X, TikTok, and Facebook, and frequently posts about how much she loves her country, Somalia.
But when the BBC contacted the person in the picture - an influencer who regularly talks about lifestyle improvement and who preferred to remain anonymous - she was shocked and said she had never seen these accounts before.
She added, "This character is not me. My images are being used, and I can't do anything to these people who are impersonating me."

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She is one of several women whose images have been used without their knowledge to promote propaganda linked to Somalia, Sudan, and the United Arab Emirates. The BBC World Service's Disinformation Monitoring Unit and BBC Arabic's fact-checking team have identified more than 100 social media accounts affiliated with this network.
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UAE's activities in Somalia, and analysts believe the content is in line with the UAE's foreign policy objectives.

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The United Arab Emirates has become a major player across the East African region, investing heavily in sectors such as security to counter armed extremist groups and maritime infrastructure along the strategically important Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, where Somalia is located.
The girls' profiles appear to show support for the Rapid Support Forces, one of the warring factions in the Sudanese civil war. The Sudanese army has accused the
United Arab Emirates of providing financial and military support to the Rapid Support Forces, a claim Abu Dhabi has repeatedly denied.

that between January 2023 and September 2025, a total of 47,000 posts across 111 accounts on X garnered nearly 300,000 likes and reached over 215 million users.
These accounts are typically created within minutes of each other, their usernames are swapped to avoid detection, and they rely on AI-generated graphics, synchronized hashtags, and nearly identical posts in multiple languages, which social media researchers point to as signs of coordinated and inauthentic behavior.
There are also copies of some recently created Facebook and TikTok accounts posting similar content, and while their number is small, they appear to demonstrate how the network can be tracked across social media platforms.
Who are these?
The accounts we monitored presented themselves as Somali citizens or at least residents of the country, and much of their content was devoted to praising the Somali government and celebrating the military's achievements. Their posts also extolled the beauty of Somalia's natural landscape, its people, and its cities.
The accounts used Somali clan names such as Isaaq, Ogaden, Aghoran, Dir, Digil, Darod, and Akicho as their nicknames, perhaps to help convince the Somali public that the accounts were real

 

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Using reverse image search technology, the BBC was able to identify the real people appearing in some of the images, and we found that the images belonged to famous influential models.
A former beauty pageant winner told us that a Facebook account with her photo was posting content promoting the Somali government and its military.
She said she does not use Facebook and has no connection to the account that uses her photo.
The account was active under the name "Halima" and was later changed to a news website that publishes mostly positive news about Somalia in Arabic. Meta said it is evaluating the account for inauthentic behavior.
Four other women confirmed that their images were used without their knowledge.
The mother of one of the women said her daughter did not have an account on X and was unaware that her daughter's photos were being used by others. She added that her daughter had no connection to the network and was not interested in politics.
A US-based beauty influencer whose image was used on a TikTok account told us through her manager that they were unaware of the exploitation and were upset by the use of her image.
A TikTok spokesperson said the account impersonating the influencer was investigated and removed, along with several other accounts, for violating the platform's covert influence operations policies.
TikTok also said its platform does not allow account behavior that could mislead users, including covert influence operations and operating accounts that impersonate others.
The company added: "We are extremely vigilant against attempts to undermine authentic interactions on TikTok, and we have teams working full-time to disrupt deceptive behavior."

 

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These accounts are definitely "electronic puppets" and part of a larger network, said Marc Owen Jones, a disinformation expert based at Northwestern University in Qatar who has previously investigated similar disinformation campaigns originating from the Middle East.
"Dummy" accounts are fake social media identities created to promote a particular point of view or manipulate public opinion, while concealing the real individuals behind them.
These accounts posted content in a mix of Somali, English, and Arabic. The use of Modern Standard Arabic stands out because it differs from what you might expect from Arabic-speaking users, especially young people. Modern Standard Arabic is typically used in religious, literary, and formal contexts, and is very rarely used in informal online conversations, where colloquial dialects are preferred.
Social media companies said that people who have fallen victim to accounts impersonating them can report these accounts themselves. X has not commented on whether these accounts violate its policies.

Why focus on Sudan?​

In the context of monitoring these accounts, Somalis shifted their focus from the Somali government to the war in Sudan, using AI-enhanced images and repetitive messages.
Last August, several women's accounts shared posts claiming that the Sudanese army had "committed a massacre," in what they called a massacre, during which 27 civilians were killed and their bodies buried in the city of El Obeid, in southern Sudan.
We were unable to find any official sources for this claim, and it appears to have been limited to social media.
The BBC verified this information with the independent Sudan-based fact-checking organization Beam Reports, which said that while it was difficult to verify information on the ground in Sudan, it was unable to find any documented evidence or reliable reports to confirm it.

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These posts appear to be a counter-narrative to reports by a pro-military Sudanese television channel that the Sudanese Air Force destroyed a UAE plane carrying Colombian mercenaries.
About 40 people were killed in the attack on an airport controlled by the Rapid Support Forces, a paramilitary group that has been waging war against the Sudanese army since April 2023.
A review of the post revealed that these accounts were exploited to promote narratives that appeared to be favorable to the Rapid Support Forces and the United Arab Emirates.
The UAE has repeatedly denied accusations of providing support to the Rapid Support Forces or foreign mercenaries fighting alongside them.

 

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network of fake accounts has doubled down on its claims about civilian deaths in the war in Sudan.

Who is behind these accounts?​

We do not know who is truly responsible for these accounts, as there is limited evidence to identify the individuals behind them.
At first glance, they seem to be praising Somalia primarily, and often its government as well, as 40 percent of posts directly mention Somalia.
Dr. Jones believes that, although it is difficult to determine which organization is running the campaign, these accounts are part of the Somalia-oriented branch, part of a network that supports the UAE's foreign policy objectives and is trying to win the support of Somalis.
"The modus operandi is the same across the network," Jones said. "You'll generally find attractive young women from a particular country that has ties to the UAE's foreign policy in the region, and this is a Somali group. But I've seen (groups) that support Mauritania, Algeria, and Morocco as well."
Regarding the UAE, Dr. Jones said the accounts praise it.
He added, "There is an overlap in political and economic strategy. The points of discussion are based on the UAE's interests in this country."
The accounts posted photos of food donations provided by the UAE, accompanied by comments such as "UAE supports Somalia."
This important economic relationship has been strained, with some Somalis opposed to the UAE's financial support for Somalia's breakaway and semi-autonomous regions.
The UAE invests in infrastructure, energy, transportation, and security in the self-declared republic of Somaliland and the semi-autonomous regions of Puntland and Jubaland, where it has also helped train soldiers and provided funding for the fight against al-Shabaab and the Islamic State.

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According to Alessandro Accorsi, an independent disinformation analyst specializing in Middle East affairs, it is difficult to hold states responsible for the spread of campaigns supporting the UAE's foreign policy narratives, because the pro-Abu Dhabi influence peddling system relies on a large number of public relations firms.
He added, "It's difficult to get a response that can be attributed to a direct source because public relations firms and companies that conduct influence operations are often contracted by a private individual."
The UAE and Somali governments did not respond to our questions.
Content analysis alone isn't enough to determine who runs these accounts. It's also difficult for women to determine who has used their photos

 

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Source: https://www.bbc.com/arabic/articles/cwypx35vryqo