Yemen, Somalia Al Qaeda's new bases: Report - India News and Travel Times Provides India-centric and other News and Features

The recent flight bombing bid by a Yemen-linked al Qaeda operative has forced US and British security agencies to change their earlier perception that the operational abilities of the terror group based in Afghanistan and Pakistan were degrading. The foiled attempt to bring the Detroit-bound US jet down has reaffirmed that Al Qaeda is still a dangerous threat, as the group may have managed to outsource and reconstitute parts of its operations to Somalia and Yemen, The Daily Times reports. However, the reality is that there have always been groups in Africa who have described themselves as being Al Qaeda. While some have been more closely associated with the core of Osama Bin Laden's ideology, others have simply used the name as a cover for criminality. "There have been a number of significant changes in Somalia and Yemen that have contributed to the emergence of a more widespread and cohesive jihadi ideology far more closely aligned to Al Qaeda's aims and agendas," an editorial in The Observer said. The paper points out that the US intervention has been responsible for the radicalisation in Somalia. "When the Islamic Courts Union emerged in Somalia in 2006 and brought a brief period of relative calm to the country, it was America that encouraged its toppling," it says. A well-documented trend has been seen in the past few months, which is the existence of an active recruitment system targeting young Somalis with US, European and Australian passports to train in camps that have sprung up in Somalia and Yemen. It was there, four days ago, that an Al Qaeda-supporting group in Yemen said it had declared war on the US.