Al Shabab to Support AQAP Operations
In an interview al Shabab spokesman Ali Rage said the Somali terror group intended to provide manpower to Yemen’s al Qaeda group, and that Yemen’s al Qaeda had provided generous support to al Shabab in the past.
Closer coordination between Somalia’s al Shabab and Yemen’s AQAP heightens risk of a coordinated attack on the NATO anti-piracy patrols in the Gulf of Aden. Currently AQAP is asking for any information on the US vessels in the Gulf including the names and home states of individual American sailors, blueprints, suppliers and operating procedures.
In a missive released yesterday, AQAP said, “Today, the duty of our Muslim nation is to declare Jihad against the infidels and their apostate cooperatives; not only on land but on sea and in the air too. The Crusader warships are present in the Gulf of Aden, in the Arabian Sea and in the Red Sea, and the American surveillance jets occupy the sphere over the Arabian Peninsula..” This echoes an earlier statement from AQ Central calling for naval jihad.
Droves of Yemeni jihaddists and Somalis in Yemen traveled to Somalia when the TFG was battling the ICU. Afterward, the US noted an exodus to back to Yemen. The intersection of piracy, arms smuggling, human smuggling and terrorists has been noted by the UN.
Update: Reuters: AQAP military commander Qasim al-Raymi has fought in Somalia and has written on the need to back Somalia’s revolt… Some others in that founding group had also fought in Somalia. Security experts say Yemenis make up a sizeable part of a foreign contingent that fights with al Shabaab’s Somali rank and file and supplies bomb-making and communications expertise. By one estimate there are about 500 or more foreigners in Shabaab’s ranks, which experts say may number 5,000 or more.
Somaliweyn The spokesman of Al-Shabab in Somalia Sheikh Ali Mohamoud Rage has at length talked about their strategy in this new year of 2010.
“We have received fighters from the Arabian Peninsular I mean in Yemen to bolster our fighters on the ground, and there is no any other alternative for us to do, but to do as the saying goes One Good Turn Deserves Another” said the spokesman of Al-Shabab.
The Spokesman has also added that there is no sign of peace and stability in Somalia, unless the African Union troops on the ground to pullout from the country and to overthrow what he called as the apostate government led by President Sheikh Shariff Sheikh Ahmed the former Chairman of the Islamic Courts Union who was officially elected by the Somali national assembly in Djibouti.
On the other hand the spokesman of Al-Shabab has in a broad daylight stated that their faction (Al-Shabab) gets international support from the other Islamists who are fighting across the world, including from Yemen, and thus there is no hindrance from them to send their fighters in Yemen too.
