Al-Shabaab joining al Qaeda, monitor group says

[Robb]

It would seem Kenya's efforts are leading to an increasingly desperate Shabaab.

Al-Shabaab joining al Qaeda, monitor group says


(CNN) -- Somalia's Al-Shabaab rebel movement has tightened its ties to the al Qaeda terror network, with its leader pledging loyalty to al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri.

The Islamist militants control much of southern Somalia and have long been affiliated with al Qaeda. But in an audio message posted on Al-Shabaab's website Thursday, the Somali group's leader, Mukhtar Abu al-Zubair, tells al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri that his followers "will march with you as loyal soldiers."

Al-Zawahiri took command of al Qaeda after U.S. commandos killed the movement's founder, Osama bin Laden, last May. Al-Zubair addresses al-Zawahiri as "my dear commander and kind sheikh" and congratulates him "for the defeat of the crusaders in Afghanistan and Iraq."

"On behalf of the soldiers and the commanders in al-Shabaab, we pledge allegiance to you. So lead us to the path of jihad and martyrdom that was drawn by our imam, the martyr Osama."....

Read More: http://www.cnn.com/2012/02/09/world/africa/somalia-shabaab-qaeda/index.html

[msanthrope]

1. Which explains the increased drone strikes in Yemen, and Somalia. Wars against pirates....

We are good at those.

[Renew Deal]

2. I imagine that these guys will be fairly easy to target.

[DUIC]

3. Birds of a feather

When you have groups like Hezbollah associating with Mexican drug cartels, terrorist groups with shared supremacist idealogies aligning should come as no surprise.

[Zax2me]

4. Why so little interest in this story?

Ignoring it doesn't make it any less the truth.

[yurbud]

5. anything with ''al Qaeda'' in the title is assumed to be bullshit