Merger of Al-Shabaab and Al-Qaeda

The Combating Terrorism Center published on 16 February 2012 an analysis of what it took for a formal merger to take place between al-Shabaab and al-Qaeda. Nelly Lahoud, associate professor at the Combating Terrorism Center in the Department of Social Sciences at the U.S. Military Academy, West Point, wrote the piece titled The Merger of Al-Shabab and Qa'idhat Al-Jihad in the CTC Sentinel.

The analysis suggests that a formal merger of the two organizations was only possible following the killing of Osama bin Laden in Pakistan and the death at a roadblock in Mogadishu in June 2011 of al-Qaeda in East Africa leader, Fazul Abdullah Mohammad, who reportedly had reservations about al-Shabaab.