“Al-Zawahri said al-Shabab would support the jihad movement against what he called the “Zio-Crusader campaign.”
As if any outside conspiracy could make Somalia any more awful than the jihadists have already made it. The major risk to the rest of the world, however, is that that al-Shabaab has a better conduit to export jihadists, both to neighbors who have intervened in Somalia, and to Somali communities in the West where the group has already been recruiting. “Somalia’s al-Shabab joins Al Qaeda, leader says,” from the Associated Press, February 9:
NAIROBI, Kenya — Al Qaeda’s leader says that the Somali militant group al-Shabab has formally joined Al Qaeda.
A video translation by the Site Intelligence group released on Thursday said that Al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahri gave “glad tidings” that al-Shabab had joined Al Qaeda.
Al-Zawahri said al-Shabab would support the jihad movement against what he called the “Zio-Crusader campaign.”
Al-Shabab leaders have pledged allegiance to Al Qaeda in the past, but the video — which was posted on an Islamic Internet forum on Thursday — is the first formal welcoming of al-Shabab by Al Qaeda.
The al-Shabab-Al Qaeda alliance in Somalia counts hundreds of foreign fighters among its ranks.