AQAP Recruits Somali Refugees
From the Washington Examiner:
Al Qaeda Reaps Recruits from Somali Refugees in Yemen
Al Qaeda’s robust terror organization in Yemen in recuriting from a pool of hundreds of thousands of Somali refugees who have fled war in their homeland
If AQAP is able to successfully incorporate Somali refugees into its organization, its options for conducting attacks abroad could increase significantly. Like Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, who is Nigerian and had no known terrorism connections before he allegedly attempted to bomb a U.S. airliner in December 2009, an operative recruited from the Somali refugee community could be well-suited to get past defensive security measures in the U.S. and other Western countries. This problem would be especially difficult to combat if Shabaab operatives were to mix themselves in amongst legitimate Somali refugees seeking entry, as has already occurred in the recent past.
Beyond refugee recruitment, the possibility of a significant operational relationship developing between AQAP and Al Shabaab is also obviously troubling. Threats to shipping are often mentioned, but the possibility of either group having a strategic fall-back location to which to relocate when under pressure or through which to transport its operatives for attacks are just as problematic.
The biggest problem of course is that it doesn’t seem that there is much that the U.S. or its allies can really do about this situation as it develops. Though it continues to put pressure on and increase cooperation with the Yemeni government, there are definite limits to what the U.S. can do to stop AQAP infiltration or weaken the organization in general. The same obviously goes for counterterrorism in Somalia, where the U.S. has even less room for maneuver and risks strengthening Shabaab’s anti-U.S. rhetoric with every step it takes to counter its influence.
