Matt Bryden, a Briton convicted of espionage, threatens Somali journalists, saying they’re ‘walking dead’

By The Star Staff Writer

Matthew David Bryden, a British citizen who runs a regional disinformation firm in Kenya’s capital and was last year convicted of “leaking” Somalia’s national secrets to others, is threatening with death Somali journalists who wrote a critical editorial on President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud of Somalia.

“Don’t waste your time on the walking dead,” Bryden wrote in a tweet on Sunday that was roundly condemned by Somalis who called him “evil” and a “war profiteer.”

“He must be held responsible for anything that happens to the journalists of The Somalia Star, Allah forbid,” former lawmaker Zakariye Mahmud Haji Abdi said.

It was not clear what in particular prompted Bryden’s anger, or whether he was issuing the threat on behalf of President Hassan, the subject of the editorial, to frighten The Somalia Star journalists into silence. Bryden and Hassan have been friends for a long time. A day after Hassan’s reelection, Rashid Abdi, an employee of Sahan Research, which Byrden serves as its director, boasted that he was the author of the president’s campaign strategy.

The threat by Bryden, who’s also a Canadian citizen, is alarming, but unsurprising. In 2016, the Fartaag Consulting, a research organization, said in a report that it had received information that Bryden and his counter-terrorism team were “involved in human rights abuses against Somalis.” A Kenyan website on Sept. 9, 2016 published details implicating an employee of Sahan in the murder of a Somali refugee in Kenya.

Bryden’s tweet came as a response to a former Somali politician’s opinion on an editorial by The Star that faulted President Hassan’s appeasement of foreign leaders and organizations at the expense of Somalia’s interests.

“An N&N mouthpiece masquerading as a news medium,” Bryden replied to Adam Aw Hirsi’s tweet, using Somali initials of the Life and Peace party led by former President Mohamed Abdullahi Farmajo.

Bryden has been harboring a grudge against The Somalia Star since it exposed last year the murky dealings of his Nairobi-based disinformation factory, Sahan Research, or Sahan as it’s simply known.

According to The Star’s investigation based on interviews with a half-dozen people who either worked for him or knew him personally, Bryden’s activities was a threat to the stability and peace in the Horn of Africa region.

Eritrea’s Information Minister Yemane G. Meskel accused Bryden of conducting “an overt and outrageous smear campaign against Eritrea for years.”

“His fallacious reports that he filed to the UN Security Council under the umbrella of the Monitoring Group on Somalia and Eritrea is one vivid demonstration of his nefarious acts,” Yemane told The Somalia Star last year.

A Somali court last year convicted Bryden along with five other foreigners of spying for and leaking Somalia’s national security information to foreign entities. It sentenced him to five years in prison in absentia and banned Sahan from working in Somalia.

Bryden, a former UN official, has been for years on the radar of Somali leaders, two of whom – former Presidents Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed and Presidents Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed “Farmajo” — declared him persona non grata within Somalia. Ahmed accused the Englishman of engaging in innuendo and allegation against Somalia, “without any concrete process for testing those allegations.”

On May 1, 2012, well before he was fired from his UN position after objections from the then-Somali government, he co-founded Sahan Research in the United Kingdom.

But the organization has since late 2020 launched a bid to become “the leading private intelligence organisation in the Horn of Africa to support client operations, programmes and projects,” according to a leaked memo.

The strategy, aimed at deploying “operators” across the Horn of Africa region, assigned Bryden the task of “focus[ing] more on Sahan’s special monitoring, grooming and targeting [and] training programme,” said the memo.

Now a Sahan team believed to be an army of hundreds of cyber warriors, trolls and staff members regularly criticizes Ethiopia’s Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, President Isaias Afwerki of Eritrea and Somalia’s former President Farmajo. It also spreads lies, promotes division and chaos in Somalia, Ethiopia and Eritrea.

Since 2020, the team, most notably Rashid, a Kenyan, has been pushing for the return of the loathed Tigray People’s Liberation Front to power in Ethiopia, exaggerating Tigrayans’ military power — all under the false flag of promoting democracy and peace in the region. Rashid is also known for his insults aimed at some Islamic scholars and even the Islamic religion itself.

Somali Twitter users have reacted strongly to Bryden’s threat to The Somalia Star.

“Clear threat to our journalists,” responded Deeqa Luul, a staunch critic of foreign countries’ meddling in Somali affairs.

Another Twitter user, Ambassador Warsame, called him a “war profiteer.”

“Matt is well known 4 blackmailing, abduction, extortion [and] target[ed] killings,” Warsame wrote.

But as Somalis’ solidarity with The Somalia Star grew, the Sahan team doubled down on their attack on The Star, launching a smear campaign on Twitter. “A great rubbish heap for all conspiracy theory, Nabad iyo Nolol (Peace and Life) propaganda,” said Rashid in a tweet that was retweeted by Bryden.

The attack drew angry responses from the users of the microblog, with one of them, Hillaaca Kaaha, retorting: I “don’t know anything that is more rubbish than Sahan.”

The Somali Star is an independent, Somali-owned and -run media outlet and is not associated with any group or political party in Somalia.

“Matt Bryden is a convicted criminal and must rot in jail,” said Zakariye, the former lawmaker, adding that he was not “surprised” to hear Bryden’s threats to journalists.

“The guy is evil. His soiled track record is the best testament to that,” Zakariye told The Star. “The Somali government shouldn’t remain silent on a news of this magnitude. No one should accept — in fact everybody should condemn — this open threat to journalists. Let the government write to Kenya and ask for his extradition to serve his jail term inside Somalia.”