Al Qaeda officially welcomes al Shabaab

Al Shabaab is officially an al Qaeda affiliate. This development is not really new, since I and other analysts have assessed that relationship to be real for some time. But for the naysayers, al Qaeda’s media arm just released a video of al Qaeda emir Ayman al Zawahiri welcoming al Shabaab to al Qaeda. Is it right, then, to continue to assert that al Shabaab remains a local threat?

The Somalia-based terrorist organization has recently come under military pressure from joint Kenyan, Ethiopian, Somali, and African Union-led operations. Most of al Shabaab’s fighters have been caught up in the fight to protect the organization’s territory, which once extended from the Kenyan border up through central Somalia. Yet not all of al Shabaab is entirely focused on this local fight. A hard-line faction within the leadership has cycled through Somalia’s successive radical Islamist organizations—first al Ittihad al Islamiyya, designated a foreign terrorist organization after 9/11, and then Somalia’s Islamic Courts Union. These leaders, profiled by the Critical Threats Project, subscribe to al Qaeda’s ideology and have more global aspirations.

Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper testified to this distinction between nationalist and radical factions of al Shabaab. He said, “Members of this group—particularly a foreign fighter cadre that includes US passport holders—may also have aspirations to attack the United States.” He added that there are no insights into concrete plots to attack outside of the Horn of Africa, however. But the nationalist and radical factions are not entirely distinct. Al Shabaab’s hardliners rely on the safe havens secured by local fighters to operate, which opens up access to necessary networks to conduct operations. Current military operations in Somalia have begun to disrupt some of these networks, but al Shabaab still has safe havens in the country. And from there, the hardliners will continue to operate.

The fact that Zawahiri and al Shabaab’s leadership decided to announce their relationship publicly at this time is in itself interesting, and merits further examination. For now, though, it is essential for American policymakers to register the fact that an Islamist organization that controls significant territory and resources—including U.S. passport-holders—has declared openly for al Qaeda.