Al Shabab Tweets Photo of Killed French Commando

Propaganda coup

Months after al Shabaab was routed from the key Somali port city of Kismayu, the al Qaeda-linked militant group scored a gruesome propaganda coup on Monday with the publication of photos of what appeared to be a dead French soldier captured during Saturday's failed French raid.

The photos, posted on the group's Twitter account, showed a white man in a blood-soaked shirt lying on an orange tarp on a bed of dry leaves. A close-up shot revealed a silver cross pendant around the victim's neck sticking out of his shirt collar in what appeared to be a carefully arranged image.