STRATFOR is investigating the degree of cooperation between the Somali militant group al Shabaab and the Yemeni jihadist group al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. Such cooperation appears to be ad hoc and based on personal relationships rather than driven by a strategic goal of mutual coordination. The scale of manpower, money and weapons trafficking between the two groups is not clear, but what is clear is the supply chain routes that al Shabaab uses in the Horn of Africa region to underwrite its insurgency against the Somali government.
