Al Shabab to Set Sail for Yemen
Al Shabab’s announcement yesterday that it is coming to the defense of its Yemeni counterparts overshadows the fact that the intial airstrikes in Yemen on al Qaeda did very little actual damage to the organization. All the targeted leaders survived. The sucess of the strikes were repeatedly over-stated by the Saleh regime in its typical pattern of blatant propaganda for the western audience. Yemen’s subsequent “storming” and “hunting” operations are more of the same. The AFP article notes the Yemeni government claims that 60 Islamist militants were killed. Its not true. Its not even close to being true.
AFP however does note the widely overlooked November arrest and later release of an individual at a Mogadishu airport with chemicals and a syringe.
Jihaddists have been going back and forth between Yemen and Somalia for some time. When the TFG was battling the Islamic Courts Union, there was a marked increase in terrorist traffic from Yemen to Somalia. Subsequently, the US noted somewhat of an exodus of Islamist fighters from Somalia to Yemen. Substantial amounts of weapons move from Yemen to Somalia, as the UN’s monitoring committee found, and is perhaps the most destabilizing factor in Somalia’s continuing chaos. Tens of thousands of Somali refugees cross the Bab al Mendab annually into Yemen. Somali pirates obtain logistical and intelligence support from sources in Yemen.
The overlapping infrastructure of refugee smugglers, arms smuggling and piracy was also noted by the UN, and of course, overlaps with al Qaeda’s footprint as well. To the extent that Somali terror recruits are joining Yemeni terrorists, its the Americans among them who pose an enhanced risk to the US homeland. The Yemeni jidaddist fanatics have historical relationships with Al Qaeda Central, which remains intent on a catastrophic attack on the United States. AFP article below the fold.
AFP: Somalia’s hardline Shebab insurgents Friday said they will send fighters to Yemen to help an Al-Qaeda affiliate behind the failed Christmas Day jetliner bombing in its fight against government forces.
Sheikh Mukhtar Robow Abu Mansour, a senior official of the Shebab militia that pledges allegiance to Al-Qaeda, announced the plan as he presented hundreds of newly-trained fighters in the north of Mogadishu.
“We tell our Muslim brothers in Yemen that we will cross the water between us and reach your place to assist you fight the enemy of Allah,” said Robow, to chants of “Allahu Akbar”, or Allah is great, by the young fighters.
“Today you see what is happening in Yemen, the enemy of Allah is destroying your Muslim brothers,” he added. “I call upon the young men in Arab lands to join the fight there.”
Yemeni forces have been battling Al-Qaeda militants in the country and last month launched raids on suspected targets in the central and the Sanaa regions, killing more than 60 Islamist militants… On Thursday, Somalia’s police chief said a man had been arrested in November at Mogadishu airport with chemicals and a syringe in a similar incident to the failed attack on the US airliner.
The suspect was however released on December 12 by a Mogadishu court which threw out a case against him for lack of evidence.
