Mogadishu (Somalia Today) – Somalia’s militant group Al-Shabaab has released a new propaganda video on its October assault on a Mogadishu intelligence detention site, identifying the son of its spokesman among those who took part in the operation.
The nearly hour-long footage revisits the October 4, 2025, attack on the high-security Godka Jilacow detention site, which Somalia’s National Intelligence and Security Agency (NISA) runs near the Villa Somalia presidential complex.
The Al-Qaeda-linked militant group identified one of the assailants as Abdirahman Sheikh Ali Mohamud Rage, whom it described as a son of Ali Mohamud Rage, better known as Ali Dhere, Al-Shabaab’s long-serving spokesman.
The video listed eight participants, including two foreigners whom the group said came from Tanzania and Ethiopia’s Oromia region.
Somalia Today could not independently verify the identities in the footage or the group’s account of the raid.
Propaganda push
The newly released video appears to offer Al-Shabaab’s most detailed public account yet of the operation.
The footage shows the attackers travelling in a Toyota Hilux disguised with NISA markings, moving through checkpoints before reaching the compound and launching the assault.
The attack began with a disguised vehicle, followed by gunmen who entered the site in what became one of the most sensitive attacks in Mogadishu last year.
In the video, which includes interviews recorded before the operation, Al-Shabaab claims its fighters freed prisoners from the facility and killed dozens of intelligence officers.
That account sharply contradicts the government’s version.
Somali authorities said security forces ended a six-hour siege, killed all seven attackers, and prevented any jailbreak.
Officials also said no civilian or security officers were killed.
At the same time, local ambulance services reported taking almost 25 wounded people from the scene to hospitals, underlining the seriousness of the attack even though the exact toll remains disputed.
The gap between official accounts and militant claims has become a familiar feature of Somalia’s long-running conflict, where both sides compete to shape the narrative after major attacks.
For Al-Shabaab, releasing a video months after the event appears to be as much about controlling the narrative as revisiting the raid itself.
It allows the group to return to one of its most prominent urban operations and project an image of reach and resilience at a time when the government has tried to present the assault as a failed attack.
Sensitive target
Godka Jilacow is not an ordinary target.
The detention site has long occupied a dark and controversial place in Somalia’s security landscape and has for years been associated with intelligence detentions and allegations of abuse.
It has also come under attack before.
In 2014, Al-Shabaab carried out a major assault on the site, killing at least 12 people in a car bomb and gun attack.
In 2018, Somali authorities announced the closure of the prison following repeated allegations of human rights abuses, but the name has continued to carry strong associations with state security and detention.
That history made the October 2025 breach especially sensitive.
Many saw the fact that militants reached a compound so close to the presidency as a serious failure of security and screening.
The new video now gives Al-Shabaab an opportunity to revisit that breach and raise fresh questions over intelligence coordination and internal security procedures.
The timing of the original raid also added to the embarrassment for the authorities.
The attack came hours after officials lifted several long-standing roadblocks in Mogadishu, a move intended to show that security in the capital was improving.
Instead, militants managed to reach one of the most tightly controlled districts in the city using a disguised vehicle.
Wider message
The timing of the video’s release is awkward for President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud’s administration.
Somalia is already grappling with rising political tensions over constitutional changes and worsening disputes between Mogadishu and regional administrations.
At the same time, the government remains under pressure to show it can hold on to security gains against an insurgency that still carries out major attacks in and around the capital.
Although Somali forces, backed by African Union troops and local militias, have recaptured territory from the insurgents in parts of central and southern Somalia, Al-Shabaab remains capable of staging complex operations and using them for propaganda long after the event itself.
Against that backdrop, the Godka Jilacow footage serves a broader purpose for the group.
It is not simply a retelling of a past operation, but a message to supporters, rivals, and the state itself that Al-Shabaab can still strike symbolic targets and use those attacks for lasting propaganda value.
The group has often relied on high-profile urban attacks to show that, despite military pressure in rural areas, it retains the ability to reach the heart of the Somali state.
For the authorities, the issue no longer concerns only what happened on the day of the assault.
It also concerns how the state responds months later when a militant group tries to turn a battlefield operation into a political and psychological victory.
The government has consistently framed the October episode as a failed raid that ended with all the attackers dead.
Al-Shabaab is now trying to recast it as proof that even the most secure arms of the Somali state remain vulnerable.
In a conflict where symbolism matters almost as much as territory, the decision to revisit Godka Jilacow is a reminder that high-profile urban operations remain central to Al-Shabaab’s strategy.
