Al-Qaida aiding Somali militants

WASHINGTON – Al-Qaida’s powerful branch in Yemen has provided weapons, fighters and training with explosives over the past year to a militant Islamist group battling for power in Somalia, according to newly developed American intelligence, raising concerns of a widening alliance of terrorist groups.

Leaders of al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula in Yemen also have urged members of the hard-line al-Shabab militia to attack targets outside Africa for the first time, said U.S. officials who were briefed on the intelligence.

The information, they said, comes in part from a Somali militant who was captured en route from Yemen to Somalia and interrogated aboard a U.S. warship before being arraigned in New York on terrorism charges this month. Further intelligence was gleaned from detailed digital files found at Osama bin Laden’s hideout in Pakistan after he was killed in May.

U.S. counterterrorism officials, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence matters, say text messages found on portable flash drives at the compound where bin Laden was killed establish that he had sought to strengthen operational ties between al-Qaida and al-Shabab.

The heads of al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula in Yemen, or AQAP, acted at times as bin Laden’s go-betweens to the Somali fighters. Among those who tried to forge the alliance was Nasir Wahayshi, an AQAP leader who previously operated as bin Laden’s personal secretary, said a former U.S. intelligence official who was briefed on the matter.

Discussing the threat at the Pentagon last week, Adm. Michael G. Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said “there is a growing cell (in Somalia) and a growing connection to al-Qaida that we are all concerned about.”