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Dozens of al-Qaeda jihadists migrating from Pakistan to Yemen and Somalia

Jun 12, 2009 1:06 am By Marisol Seibold

“The terror groups in all three locations are now communicating more frequently, and apparently trying to coordinate their actions.”

An update on this story. “Some Pakistan Qaeda Fighters Now in Yemen and Somalia,” by Eric Schmitt and David E. Sanger for the New York Times, June 11:

WASHINGTON “” American officials say they are seeing the first evidence that dozens of fighters with Al Qaeda, and a small handful of the terrorist group’s leaders, are moving to Somalia and Yemen from their principal haven in Pakistan’s tribal areas. In communications that are being watched carefully at the Pentagon, White House and Central Intelligence Agency, the terror groups in all three locations are now communicating more frequently, and apparently trying to coordinate their actions, the officials said.

Some aides to President Obama attribute the moves to pressure from intensified drone attacks against Qaeda operatives in Pakistan, after years of unsuccessful American efforts to dislodge the terror group from their haven there.

But there are other possible explanations. Chief among them is the growth of the jihadist campaigns in both Somalia and Yemen, which may now have some of the same appeal for militants that Iraq did after the American military invasion there in 2003. Somalia is now a failed state that bears some resemblance to Afghanistan before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, while Yemen’s weak government is ineffectually attempting to combat the militants, American officials say.

The shift of fighters is still small, perhaps a few dozen, and there is no evidence that the top leaders “” Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahri “” are considering a move from their refuge in the Pakistani tribal areas, according to more than half a dozen senior administration, military and counterterrorism officials interviewed in recent days. Most officials would not comment on the record about the details of what they are seeing, because of the sensitivity of the intelligence information they are gathering.

Leon E. Panetta, the C.I.A. director, said in remarks here on Thursday that as Al Qaeda came under increasing pressure in Pakistan, the United States must prevent the terrorist group from creating a new sanctuary in Yemen or Somalia.

The steady trickle of fighters from Pakistan could worsen the chaos in Somalia, where the Islamic militant group, the Shabab, has attracted hundreds of foreign jihadists in its quest to topple the weak moderate Islamist government in Mogadishu. It could also swell the ranks of a growing menace in Yemen, where militants now control large swaths of the country outside the capital.

“I am very worried about growing safe havens in both Somalia and Yemen, specifically because we have seen Al Qaeda leadership, some leaders, start to flow to Yemen,” Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in remarks at the Brookings Institution here on May 18.

For the United States, the movement creates opportunities as well as risks. With the Obama administration focusing its fight against the Taliban and Al Qaeda on the havens in Afghanistan and Pakistan, a shift of fighters and some leaders to new locations could complicate American efforts to strike a lasting blow….

The failure to engage the jihadist ideology for what it is — an inherent part of Islamic teachings and history — also “complicates” those efforts in all three countries: Particularly in the case of the supposedly “moderate” or “friendly” governments of Pakistan and Yemen, the U.S. has trusted that it has allies where it does not, and has set the stage for perpetual surprise in Washington as reality defies expectations.

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