Bin Laden calls for the overthrow of the Somali government in new audio tape

Earlier today al Qaida'a media front, As-Sahab, released an audio tape dubbed over a still picture of Bin Laden in front of a map of Somalia. This is the second video released by As-Sahab that deals almost exclusively with Somalia in the past two months. The video also contains english subtitles. It still has not been confirmed if the voice in the audio is that of Bin Laden's. You can read the transcript over at the NEFA foundation.

In the audio, OBL urges al Shabaab to continue their jihad and to overthrow the current transitional President of Somalia, Sharif Ahmed, who was elected president on January 31st. Then for the rest of the video Bin Laden is just spewing out his usual crap....Blah blah crusader armies in Lebannon, Afghanistan, Iraq...blah blah blah I hump goats.

Over the past year al Qaida has focused more of it's energy into Somalia. First al Qaida called for increased piracy in the Gulf of Aden (a very important transit way for international shipping). The ties betweetn al Shabaab, a Somali terrorist group, and al Qaida have grown significantly over the past year. In 08 al Shabaab pledged allegiance to Osama bin laden and it is expected that al Shabaab will officialy join al Qaida in the near future if they haven't already.

Just this past week we have seen how an al Qaida controlled Somalia is not good for business. This past Sunday in Yemen a terrorist, trained in Somalia, blew himself up killing 4 South Korean tourists. The attack had the same hallmarks as other al Qaida attacks.

If al Qaida is training suicide bombers in Somalia in order to attack other countries than the case of the missing Somali teens from Minnesota is worrying.

Rusty has been warning about Somalia for sometime now. With the merger of al Shabaab and al Qaida and Somalia's importance to al Qaida we can expect to see lots more in the near future.